Winning $2.04B Powerball Ticket Sold Near Los Angeles: Here's How Much Winner Will Take Home

Monday night’s Powerball drawing was the largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, at $2.04 billion. The cash value of the jackpot is $997.6 million and despite a huge tax bill, the winner will be taking home more than $500 million.

Joe’s Service Center, a convenience store in Altadena, California, about 15 miles northeast of Los Angeles, sold the winning ticket and will receive a bonus from the lottery commission.

One might think that the winner would have to pay more taxes in California compared to other states, but that is not the case. According to a report from CNBC, California actually ranks on the low end in terms of lottery taxes, on par with red states like Florida and Texas. In fact, California is one of the best states to win the lottery in terms of state taxes. 

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Harder And Harder: The lottery commissioners intentionally made it harder to win the Powerball jackpot in 2015, which also increases the size of the jackpots. In order to entice more ticket buyers, Powerball included additional number combinations seven years ago. Since then, there have been five different lottery jackpots that have reached $1 billion dollars or more. Before the 2015 rule change, there had been zero. 

How The Powerball Works: Different lotteries have different rules and prizes. For the Powerball, a national lottery, ticket buyers select 5 numbers 1-69 as well as a "Powerball" which is 1-26. According to Powerball, the odds of selecting all six numbers correctly is about 1 in 292 million. Tickets cost $2.