A grocery store in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn is $5,000 richer after selling a $1 million winning Powerball ticket, as the national jackpot climbed to an estimated $905 million following Saturday's drawing. Two Ways Supermarket sold the Match-5 winner, one of several $1 million tickets sold nationwide in the same drawing, even as the grand prize itself again rolled over with no winner.
The winning numbers drawn Saturday were 5, 9, 35, 54, and 63, with a red Powerball of 7 and a Power Play multiplier of 3, according to CBS News New York, whose Allen Devlin reported on the jackpot and the winning tickets. The station's report notes the drawing marked the 41st consecutive draw without a jackpot winner since the top prize was last claimed on May 2, at a Leander, Texas QuickTrip, a win Hoodline previously Leander jackpot claim in May.
How the Jackpot Got So Big So Fast
With no grand-prize winner Saturday, the jackpot swelled to $905 million, with a lump-sum cash option of $391.9 million, as reported by CBS News. Part of the acceleration traces back to July, when the Multi-State Lottery Association expanded Powerball ticket sales to residents of the United Kingdom for the first time, adding international players to a game that had previously been limited to 45 U.S. states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, per the same outlet.
At $905 million, the prize now ranks as the eighth-largest Powerball jackpot in U.S. history, though it remains well behind the record $2.04 billion jackpot won in California in November 2022, according to ABC News. The odds of winning that grand prize stand at 1 in 292,201,338, while the odds of matching all five white balls for the $1 million prize — like the one sold in Bed-Stuy — are a comparatively better 1 in 11,688,054, per Forbes.
What Bed-Stuy's Grocery Store Gets Out of the Sale
Under New York State Gaming Commission rules, licensed lottery agents who sell a winning ticket worth more than $100,000 receive a 0.5% retailer bonus. That formula earns Two Ways Supermarket a $5,000 payout for selling the $1 million ticket, with the state also paying scaled bonuses on smaller winning tiers, according to state regulations. The bonus arrives against the backdrop of a broader policy shift: in November 2024, the New York Lottery raised retail partner sales commissions by 1% across more than 17,000 licensed retailers statewide, its first major commission increase in nearly a decade, intended to help independent convenience stores and supermarkets offset rising labor costs.
The Tax Bite on a Nine-Figure Prize
Whoever eventually wins the full jackpot will face a steep gap between the advertised prize and what actually lands in their bank account. Should a winner choose the $391.9 million lump-sum cash option, mandatory federal withholding of 24% would immediately shrink that to roughly $297.8 million, and the top marginal federal rate of 37% would ultimately bring the total down to about $246.8 million, Forbes reports.
New York adds another layer most winners elsewhere wouldn't face: the state applies a top income tax rate of 10.9% on lottery winnings, with local New York City taxes capable of shaving off even more, according to Forbes. By contrast, states including California, Florida, and Texas charge zero state tax on lottery prizes. A winner could instead take the annuity route, receiving the full $905 million across 30 annual installments over 29 years, with each payment rising 5% to keep pace with inflation — averaging roughly $30 million a year before taxes.
Part of a Bigger Rollover Pattern
This isn't the first time this rollover stretch has produced a local headline instead of a national jackpot winner. Hoodline has tracked the streak through North Carolina Powerball hotspots in late July, a San Jose store's $1 million Match-5 sale in early July, and a $470,000 hit at a Roseville, California gas station back in May, when the jackpot sat at a comparatively modest $86 million. Each incident has followed the same shape: a life-changing local payout, and a national jackpot that keeps climbing toward the next drawing.
