Mass. woman claims record $758.7 million lotto jackpot
BRAINTREE, Mass. — A 53-year-old Massachusetts hospital worker stepped forward Thursday to claim the biggest undivided lottery jackpot in U.S. history — a $758.7 million Powerball prize — after breaking the news to her employer the way the rest of us only dream of: “I called and told them I will not be coming back.”
“The first thing I want to do is just sit back and relax,” Mavis Wanczyk told reporters at a news conference.
Wanczyk chose to take a lump-sum payment of $480 million, or $336 million after taxes, lottery officials said. Winners who take a gradual payout stand to get more money spread out over several decades.
The previous evening, she recalled, she was leaving work with a firefighter and remarked, “It’s never going to be me. It’s just a pipe dream that I’ve always had.”
Then she read the number on her ticket and realized she had won.
Wanczyk worked for 32 years at Mercy Medical Center in Springfield in western Massachusetts, she said. About a month ago, she shared a post on Facebook joking that she needed a vacation. “And by ‘vacation,’ ” the post read, “I mean I need to move away and find a new job. On a beach. With rum.”
The jackpot is the largest ever won with a single ticket. It is the secondlargest U.S. lottery prize, ahead of a $656 million Mega Millions prize won by three people in 2012.
But Wednesday’s big prize is still dwarfed by a $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot divvied up between three winners in January 2016.
The winning numbers in the Wednesday drawing were 6-7-16-23-26, and the PowerPlay number was 4.
Wanczyk has two adult children, a daughter and a son.
Massachusetts Treasurer Deb Goldberg said she offered advice to the family about being careful with their new-found wealth.