Harlan Kirgan
By Harlan Kirgan
Editor
The luckiest place in Louisiana, maybe the nation and perhaps in the world on Wednesday was Brownie’s convenience store at 150 W. Maple Ave. in Eunice.
Sometime Wednesday someone bought the winning ticket in the Powerball drawing that was worth $191.1 million.
Who bought the ticket remained a mystery Friday. The winner or winners have 180 days to claim the prize.
Owner Jeff Duplechin would not get any more specific about the ticket sale other than it happened Wednesday.
“I can’t say nothing. I don’t know who the person is,” Dupelchin said Friday morning.
“I’m happy for the person the person who won it,” he added.
“I’ve never had this happen to me. How many times have you had that happen to you? I never even dreamed it — a little store Brownie’s in Eunice,’” he said.
Rachael Simmons, a clerk at the store, also wouldn’t speculate about who bought the ticket although she likely sold it. But the store is a busy.
The winning ticket is the largest in Louisiana Lottery history. The previous largest jackpot in Louisiana was a $97 million Powerball tickets from the Jan. 16, 2008, drawing claimed by a Metairie man.
The winning numbers for the Oct. 25 drawing were 18-22-29-54-57 and the Powerball was 8. Nationally, a total of 17,429,345 tickets (plays) were sold for the Oct. 25 drawing, according to information on the Louisiana Lottery website.
Duplechin said Simmons called him Thursday morning about the winning ticket while he and his wife, Cindy, were driving back to Eunice from Lafayette.
Their drive time discussion, he said, turned to, “What are going to do? How are we going to handle this.”
A lottery security official visited the store Thursday morning along with reporters, he said.
Duplechin said this is not the first time there has been a big winner at the store. In December 2015, a scratch-off ticket worth $200,000 was sold.
The store might be lucky. Duplechin recalled a $30,000 scratch-off winner, $20,000 winner and $10,000 scratch-off winner.
“We sell a lot of winners,” he said, adding an appreciative note about the publicity.
Brownie’s is one of the busiest spots in Eunice for lottery sales, he said.
“It’s good. It brings customers into your store. Hopefully, they will buy other things,” he said.
The store has been selling lottery chances since 1991, he said.
The store is paid a minimum of $25,000 for selling the winning ticket or 1 percent of Louisiana’s contribution to the jackpot pool.
Dupelechin said he doesn’t know which prize the store is getting or when he finds that out.
Brownie’s has been in business for 52 years, he said. Duplechin bought the business from his father, A.J. “Brownie” Duplechin in 1984.
The holder of Wednesday’s jackpot-winning ticket has 180 days after the date of the drawing in which to claim the prize, which is subject to federal and state withholding taxes, he lottery website states.
Also on the website:
The advertised Powerball jackpot represents an estimate of the annuity prize amount, which is paid in 30 graduated installments that increase by 4 percent each year. The first installment is paid at the time the prize is claimed. Winners also have the option to take a one-time lump sum payment equal to the cash value of the jackpot prize pool, which is $119,492,685.81 for the Oct. 25 drawing. The winner has up to 60 days after claiming the prize to decide on the prize payment option.
The Powerball jackpot was last won in Louisiana on May 25, 2013, by the Williams Trust in New Orleans.
A news site reported, In addition to the jackpot winner, two Powerball tickets worth $1 million each were sold in Florida. There were also more than 700,000 smaller cash prizes totaling $7.7 million.
Powerball is held in 44 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
A $2 ticket gives you a one in 292.2 million chance at joining the hall of Powerball champions.