Lottery player won $256,000,000 with ticket from ‘lucky hand’ and doesn’t know

A lottery player purchased a Powerball ticket from a ‘lucky hand’ and won a $256million jackpot – but has yet to come forward and claim the prize.

The player bought the ticket at Hua Lian Supermarket in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens in New York City.

It matched all six numbers in the Saturday night drawing, which were white balls 1, 31, 43, 55, 57 and red Powerball 22, according to the New York Lottery.

The winner will get to choose between $256million in annual payments over 30 years, or a lump sum payment of $123.5million before taxes.

A worker at the grocery store on Parsons Boulevard, Jenny Fang, 40, said she was the one who sold the ticket.

‘I’ve never sold a winning ticket that big. I have a lucky hand!’ she told the New York Post on Monday.

‘It’s amazing … it was a total surprise.’

But Fang does not know who the person that bought the winning ticket is.

‘They haven’t come in to claim it,’ she said.

‘Ninety percent of the people in this neighborhood are Asian, so an Asian person bought it, I think.’

Community members spread the word of the big win through WeChat, a social media and messaging platform widely used in China, but the winner was still unknown as of Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the market has seen a surge of customers as other lottery players in the neighborhood are playing the game in hopes of also benefitting from Fang’s ‘lucky hand’.

The rush has expanded to beyond the Queens borough and people of Asian descent.

‘I heard the news that they sold the winning ticket, so I looked up the address and came from the Bronx to buy a Powerball and Mega (Millions) ticket,’ Ruben Vasquez, 73, told the newspaper.

Vasquez, who has been buying lottery tickets for a couple of years, rubbed a red-and-gold ornament with ‘good fortune’ printed in Chinese characters.

‘You never know where your luck is going to be. You just have to hope you find it one day,’ he said.

‘I want to find out if my luck is over here too. I’m hoping I can be one of the lucky ones. You never know.’

The latest winner is the ninth to land the Powerball jackpot in 2024 and the first one in the Empire State since 2020.

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