It seems that huge multimillion jackpots are becoming the norm but that could be coming with a few warning signs.
Four Winners in a Month
The UK National Lottery confirmed that the November 5 Lotto draw had a single winner of the big prize. The lucky player’s reward is £3.8 million ($4.38 million), and he or she has reportedly already contacted the Lottery to claim their prize. This is the fourth jackpot awarded by the Lottery in the last thirty days.
It all started exactly a month ago, with the October 8 draw resulting in a £4 million ($4.61 million) prize for the winner. Just a few days later, on October 12, the draw made another winner happy with a £2 million ($2.31 million) jackpot. It wasn’t until November 2, however, that the next big winner was announced, and they took the biggest payout yet – £12.8 million (US$14.77 million).
Although the latest winner’s identity hasn’t been publicly disclosed yet, it is known that they are still going through an identification process, which is the last required step before receiving the payout. This process is usually not too slow.
The UK Millionaire Maker round awarded twenty £1 million ($1.15 million) prizes after the November 4 draw, with the huge jackpot of £140.88 million ($162.66 million) won by a lucky ticket bought from France. More than 2.8 million people won various prizes that day, with a total of more than £24 million (north of $27 million) in total.
US Powerball Dwarfs UK Wins
All these figures, however, are dwarfed by the recent US Powerball, which had a single player win the eye-watering $2.04 billion jackpot. Yes, you read that correctly – $2.04 billion. The jackpot was finally won after 40 draws in a row without a big winner. The winner had two options: receive $997.6 million in one instalment or go with 30 annual payments for their win.
The winning ticket was reportedly sold in Altadena, California, from a Joe’s Service Center, which can now brag it sold the ticket that set a world record, at least according to most reports. The previous Powerball jackpot record was $1.59 billion, which was won in 2016, but was shared by three winners.
The drawing for the huge jackpot was actually delayed because of a few states taking turns in slowing down the process of completing security protocols. This can be anything from making sure that the state lottery has completed processing its sales to making sure the draw is fair.
The Powerball had also garnered some worrying headlines, being criticized for predatory gambling practices.