Minnesota Powerball
Last Updated: Monday 21st June 2010, 14:01
A Minnesota Powerball lottery player has won $180.1 million and in doing so Paul Rosenau has become the biggest jackpot winner in the state’s history. He matched all five main numbers (2, 28, 36, 42 and 46) and the Powerball (40) in the draw of Saturday 3 May.
Paul and his wife Sue found out about their win when watching the late evening news on Sunday 4 May. “We were in our jammies and ready to go to bed,” Paul explained. But they then saw the Powerball numbers appear on their television screen and decided that their bed could wait. Instead, they raced to Sue’s workplace so that they could go online and check their ticket properly. Even after doing this, Paul triple checked the numbers in the newspaper the next day.
“He was thinking that the numbers were going to change overnight,” Sue laughed. “I was checking the paper for an hour,” Paul admitted. “I was soaking wet just from the nerves.”
The couple visited lottery headquarters in Roseville on Tuesday 6 May to make their formal claim, and they were still in shock. “It’s just really amazing,” Paul said, whilst his wife commented: “It’s something you just never think will happen.”
Paul and Sue have decided to take a cash lump sum instead of the annuity option, so they will receive $88 million ($59.6 million after taxes). They are not planning to retire from work just yet (Paul is a heavy equipment operator for an excavating company and Sue is a project and communications assistant for a agricultural research institute) and they have not yet said how they intend to spend their winnings.
There have been twenty Minnesota Powerball jackpot winners since the game started in 1992 and the last one was won in November 2006. By winning £180.1 million, Paul and Sue Rosenau have set a new record that plenty of other Minnesota lottery players will now be hoping to match or beat in the future.
