A Bakersfield man is $2.5 million richer Monday after purchasing a winning Powerball ticket on Friday October 26, 2018.
California Lottery officials said the two tickets with five matching numbers were found in both downtown Bakersfield and the Highland area in San Bernardino. 23ABC News caught up with store employees at the lucky gas station in Kern County and gathered more details on the win.
Over the years Bakersfield has had a number of Powerball wins according to the California lottery. The Mobil gas station owner in downtown Bakersfield on Union Ave and 19th Street, Mr.Ly said he’s thrilled to be apart of this win and he’s glad his loyal customer got lucky too.
Mr. Ly, also said even though he can’t share the name of the man who won inside his store, he said the man is in his late 20’s early 30’s and is planning to collect his $2.5 million soon but not in Bakersfield, “He’s heading Sacramento I guess.”
According to Mr. Ly the man stopped by his store Friday afternoon between two and three p.m. to purchase $100 worth of Powerball tickets and one of those tickets was definitely worth playing. “One of them got five out five." 8, 12, 13, 19 and 27 were those five lucky numbers, just short of the six needed to take the whole Powerball jackpot. However, it was still good enough for a chunk of the five out of five jackpot.
Those numbers were played by Mr. Ly’s customer according to the California Lottery. Since the ticket came from Mr. Ly’s store he received a prize too according to lottery officials. “For this five out of five the jackpot was $5 million, just a little over $5 million. So two people are going to split that. So the player who won here is going to get just over $2.5 million and the retailer will get half of one percent of that,” California Lottery official Henry Hernandez said.
Hernandez and his team awarded Mr. Ly with a $10,000 check on Monday morning following the win on Saturday. According to lottery officials they will also be awarding the other lucky winner and store out of Highland in San Bernardino County soon, but Mr. Ly said he isn’t sure what he will do with his prize, “I don’t know, I got no idea..still working hahaha.”
Since 2013 there has been two winners in Taft, one in Ridgecrest, one in Tehachapi, one in Delano, five in Bakersfield not including Saturday's win and they all received more than $200,000 each according to California Lottery officials.
The Stockdale West Texaco gas station on Allen Road and Stockdale Highway in particular still has a plaque showing they had a winner in 2012 who also won more than $200,000.
As for Mr. Ly he said it pays to be a devoted local in Kern County, “Yep loyal customer yep, yep!”
As of Monday October 29, 2018 we still do not have the official name of the man who won in Bakersfield.
