Charles W. Jackson Jr., a 66-year-old retired store-owner from North Carolina, came forward to claim his massive Powerball jackpot on Tuesday. At a news conference, Jackson said he picked his winning lottery numbers from the back of a piece of paper inside a fortune cookie given to him by his granddaughter during a recent trip to a Vietnamese restaurant.
The fortune cookie claimed to offer lucky numbers, but Jackson did not expect them to be lucky enough to win him over $300 Million. “You play to win, but you never really expect to win the whole dang pot,” Jackon told the North Carolina Education Lottery officials on Tuesday.
Jackson has opted to take the lump sum cash option, which means he’ll walk away with a whopping $223.3 million in cash. Various financial experts advise lottery winners to take the lump sum option, as opposed to multi-year annuity payments, and to invest their winnings in relatively safe, long-term stocks.
