The mystery is over.
The California Lottery announced Friday the winner of last summer’s Powerball jackpot worth $1.08 billion.
Lottery officials said Yanira Alvarez is the lucky lady who matched all the numbers with the ticket purchased at Las Palmitas Mini Market in downtown Los Angeles in July.
Her win ended a 39-draw jackpot run for Powerball, and it was also the first of two back-to-back billion-dollar winning tickets sold in California, the Lottery officials said in a press release.
Alvarez’s prize is the sixth largest in United States history and the third largest in the history of the game.
Alvarez had the option of receiving the $1.08 billion jackpot in 30 installments or a lump sum payment of $558.1 million. She chose the latter.
The other Powerball jackpot happened in October 2023 when a Powerball ticket worth $1.7 billion was sold at Midway Market in Frazier Park. The California Lottery revealed that a group won that prize.
The largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history totals $2.04 billion and was won on a single Powerball ticket in California on Nov. 7, 2022. The winner of that prize was Edwin Castro.
The owners of the businesses where the winning Powerball tickets were sold also get a check for nearly $1 million for selling the winning ticket.
The next Powerball jackpot is projected to be $935 million, with an estimated cash value of $449.7 million.