Elk Grove shoppers react to $1.2 million Powerball ticket being sold at major retail store

A pair of big-winner lottery tickets sold this week in Northern California have some residents in the capital region wondering: What if?

Two tickets purchased within a short drive of Sacramento matched five numbers in Wednesday’s nationwide Powerball drawing, for which the grand-prize jackpot was worth an estimated $1.2 billion.

Although the winners didn’t claim the “big B,” California Lottery officials say each ticket is good for $1.2 million before taxes and fees.

The five-out-of-six tickets, only missing that special Powerball number, were sold in Elk Grove, at the Walmart on Elk Grove Boulevard; and in Vacaville, at a Cigarettes 4 Discount smoke shop.

The winning numbers drawn Wednesday were 9, 35, 54, 63, 64; the Powerball was 1. The odds of hitting the grand prize jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million; the odds of matching five numbers are 1 in 11.7 million.

Bridgett Chapman was in Elk Grove shopping at Walmart on Thursday when she found out she was in the same location where a ticket worth seven figures was recently sold.

Chapman said if she won the lottery, she would buy herself a condo.

“I don’t need a house ... I don’t like to use extra rooms or have extra stuff available and I’m not using it,” Chapman said. “I feel you should use everything that you buy, not just look at it.”

She used to play the lotto all of the time. She said she would play wherever she went. Every now and then, Chapman said, she’ll play the main lottery games, but now she mainly sticks to California Lottery Scratchers.

“I like a guaranteed win. I’m that type of person,” she said.

In addition to her condo, Chapman, 63, said she would give some of the money back to her family members.

“I would pay off my daughter’s house so she won’t have a house note, just pay taxes. That’s it,” she said. “Throw a little money to my immediate family too, take a trip and bank the rest.”

Her friend Nini Portlock, also 63, has never played the lottery since it first became playable in California in 1985.

She’s never had the urge, she said, to even put a dime on it.

However, if she did play and happened to win, Portlock said she would donate some of the earnings, spend some and invest the rest.

“The first thing I would do is, like Bridgett said, pay off house notes — my son has a house,” Portlock said. “(I’d) buy my younger son a house and pay off my house. Well, first and foremost, pay tithes on it. Give God his, and then sort of put a little to the side to splurge, vacation, invest and a little to pay off my grave site.”

She added that she would donate to an “organization that helps women and children in need.” She said she also hoped that doing so might lower her taxes.

Powerball jackpot keeps growing

It was unknown as of Thursday afternoon whether the Elk Grove winner had redeemed their winning ticket yet.

When they do, they won’t quite become an instant millionaire. Lottery officials withhold 25% automatically for federal taxes, and the winner is responsible for the rest. California, however, is one of a handful of states that don’t tax lottery winnings at the state level.

Without a grand-prize ticket matching all six numbers Wednesday, marking 33 consecutive Powerball selections without a winner, the jackpot will continue to climb for Saturday’s drawing.

Lottery officials say the jackpot for the next drawing will be worth at least $1.4 billion. That’s worth about $644 million before taxes when taken as a lump sum, according to the Powerball website.

Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico; and the U.S. Virgin Islands.