powerball-delay-caused-by-minnesota-verification

Powerball Delay Was Caused By Minnesota’s Verification System Malfunctioning

Lottery officials in Minnesota announced that their state’s verification system—not California’s—was behind last night’s delayed Powerball drawing.

“After unprecedented lottery interest, Minnesota’s lottery sales verification system caused a processing delay on Monday, Nov. 7,” the Minnesota Lottery wrote in a statement. “The delay was necessary to confirm the Powerball drawing could be conducted securely and accurately. At no time was the integrity of the process compromised.”

The drawing was supposed to take place on Monday at 10:59 pm. But when players headed to the website to see if they’d won the record-breaking $1.90 billion jackpot, all they saw was a message that read “Results Pending”

Originally, Powerball officials had only shared that they were unable to “process its sales and player data in time.” Then the California lottery commission confused the matter by saying that it had paused the reading “for security reasons.”

The numbers were finally read on Tuesday morning, and after 41 consecutive drawings, there was finally a winner. Waiting the extra few hours helped that person, too. By the time the numbers were read, the jackpot had grown to $2.04 billion.

The winning number are 10, 33, 41, 47, and 56 with a Powerball of 10.

According to the lottery commission, there is only one winner taking home the entire jackpot, and they live in California. The person will have to share with Uncle Sam, however.

There are two ways the person can choose to accept their fortune. They can either take a one-time “reduced” payout that is subject to all taxes upfront. Or they can receive annual payments for 29 years.

If they choose the money upfront, the $2.04 immediately drops to $997.6 million. The annual payments will be taxed as yearly income.

Powerball Conspiracy Theories are Brewing

That one lucky Californian may be living the dream right now. But they’ve also become subject to some major conspiracy theories.

Because of the strange circumstances surrounding the delayed drawing and subsequent larger jackpot, social media users thinks something sinister happened in the background.

“This Powerball scam is exactly like the time that the FBI told McDonald’s to run a rigged Monopoly Game and scam the entire country so they could get more evidence and arrest the guy who was giving away all the top prizes to people he knew,” Shem Horne wrote on Twitter.

Players are also concerned about the storyline. Originally, California took the blame for the delay. Then, Minnesota officials proceeded to say the problem was actually on their end. And someone in California ended up taking the money.

https://twitter.com/cr_mcclain/status/1590071082958360581

“We’re witnessing the biggest scam of all time. The #powerball just totally scammed $2B from the US PEOPLE. Then they gaslight, California caused the delay…no, wait, Minnesota did, but there’s no winner…oh wait, someone in California won it all. #classaction #boycottpowerball.”

No matter what happened, the Powerball will pick back up this week with a fresh jackpot tomorrow (Nov. 9). So if you want a chance to win, you can buy a $2 ticket at a local grocery store, gas station, or convenience store.