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Liz Farrell

Farrell: $800M Powerball winner just a regular person right now

By LIZ FARRELL lfarrell@islandpacket.com
Sakitha Williams, an employee at Parker's gas station at Jennifer and Buck Island roads in Bluffton, sells a Powerball ticket Jan. 6 to a customer who declined to give his full name. Tickets were selling at a rapid pace as many were looking to cash in on a jackpot estimated to be the biggest in nearly a year. Last February, a $564 million Powerball jackpot was shared by winners in North Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico.
Sakitha Williams, an employee at Parker's gas station at Jennifer and Buck Island roads in Bluffton, sells a Powerball ticket Jan. 6 to a customer who declined to give his full name. Tickets were selling at a rapid pace as many were looking to cash in on a jackpot estimated to be the biggest in nearly a year. Last February, a $564 million Powerball jackpot was shared by winners in North Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico. Josh Mitelman jmitelman@islandpacket.com

If you win the $800 million Powerball prize Saturday night, you are best advised to stay quiet.

This will differ greatly from what your instincts tell you to do, which might be to give irretrievable instructions to your boss or alert your Facebook friends the news (#soblessed) or give a pre-emptive "yes" to every family member with a business idea -- including your sister, whose plans are to manufacture pants for cartoon ducks ("Don't you get it? We'll have a DIGITAL LIBRARY of pants drawings that Disney can BUY whenever Donald stars in something!").

If you win, simply double-check and then triple-check your ticket. Breathe. And go get a Ziplock bag.

This is not advice I've gotten from anyone official, but it's what I would do: Get a Ziplock bag. Maybe even two.

Then I would duct tape the winning ticket to my body, pack up my dog and cat, get in my car and go to my family.

When most people think about winning the lottery, they picture the beach houses they'll buy and the charities they'll donate to and the friends and family they'll help.

I do this too.

But I also picture the fear I will have of being so focused on protecting the winning ticket that my brain will malfunction and I'll somehow ball the ticket up and throw it in the first sewer grate I pass. And I picture the frustration I will feel when I hit the road Saturday night in my great plan of escape only to realize that I am once again driving somewhere without having signed up for E-ZPass.

There are so many toll booths between here and there!

Speaking of driving, I wonder how many people actually drove to Pennsylvania before the drawing deadline to "increase their odds of winning."

Sixteen Powerball jackpot winners over the past 13 years have bought their tickets in Pennsylvania, the most from any one state -- so inevitably "Buy your tickets in Pennsylvania" has made it onto every "How to win this thing" list.

But is there really any hope? Is there really any strategy to this?

For fun, I read some of those lists before I headed over to Publix to buy a ticket, which I only did after Googling (just out of curiosity, not strategy) "Do people who buy their tickets at Publix ever win the Powerball or is it always at narrative-friendly mom and pop shops on roads no one has heard of?"

I don't usually play the lottery, so I needed a little guidance. But reading those lists was a mistake.

First, they all talk about the incredibly low odds of winning as if we don't already know. Three hundred million to one or something. Lots of people know the odds. It's the thing everyone says after they buy their ticket anyway: "I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning, haha."

But you know there's a small part of everyone that is just saying this because they think it messes with fate. "If I have no expectations of winning, I'll probably win." "If I say I won't, then maybe I will." "I'm not even going to plan for a win (except look me on Zillow! 'I'm going to get that one and that one and that one')."

Second, every list seems to throw the tax bill at readers. "Most of your winnings will go to the government!" Fine. It's still more than 99 percent of lottery players will make in their lifetimes. It amounts to "Don't play because you're going to owe a lot of imaginary money!"

One list, on Forbes' site, said to forget the quick pick and go for the handwritten cards. This will "better your spread."

But don't pick birthday numbers.

Or anniversary dates.

Right now there is a crumpled Powerball numbers card and a stolen mini-golf pencil in my purse because I panicked at the Publix counter, shoved them in there and left after mumbling "quick pick" to the cashier and getting my ticket.

What's a spread?

Why are there so many numbers? How many am I supposed to pick? What if they're all odd? Or most are even?

POWER PLAY? What?

Without birthdays and anniversary dates, I had nothing. Am I supposed to just stab at the numbered circles until my pencil makes a dot on one and then fill in those numbers?

I short-circuited and drew all over the thing before giving up.

This is too much drama for what amounts to a $2 donation.

It is fun, though, to think about the person who will win. Right now he or she is just a regular person with a ticket or two in the old wallet.

But on Saturday night, it could be Ziplock city.

Follow columnist and senior editor Liz Farrell at twitter.com/elizfarrell and facebook.com/elizfarrell.

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This story was originally published January 8, 2016 at 4:50 PM with the headline "Farrell: $800M Powerball winner just a regular person right now."

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