See how two Powerball winners became recordholders as recipients of Georgia’s largest Powerball payout in its entire lottery history last year.
The Peach State and Powerball excitement go together like Braves baseball and a bag of hot peanuts, especially recently. Ringing in the new year is the news of two Powerball winners in Georgia who took home $478.2 million collectively near the end of 2024. But what makes this Powerball jackpot prize so special is its historic relevance in the state. This end-of-year win broke records as the largest payout in the state's entire lottery history. Here’s more about this incredible, life-changing jackpot prize that also earned head nods as a record-breaking state payout.
The winning GA Powerball ticket was purchased at the Quick Mart on Buford Dam Road in bucolic Buford, a scenic town of 17,000 located in the Atlanta metro area. The two Powerball-winning individuals decided to split the total prize and remain anonymous. It’s estimated their take-home prizes were in the $230,566,360 range before taxes for each, enough to be life-changing for both of them.
Winning numbers for the October 23rd drawing were 2-15-27-29-39, and the Powerball was 20. It proved to be a life-changing and record-breaking Quick Pick purchase.
Even the retailer won big in this case, celebrating a retailer incentive for selling the winning ticket. The retailer incentive amounted to a $50,000 bonus.
The record-breaking win of $478.2 million in 2024 is the largest win in Georgia's history. And prior to this historic win, only five others have won jackpots in the state.
FUN FACT: The first Powerball jackpot with a prize of $116 Million was won on September 18, 2010, in Mableton, GA 30126, by Gerald L. Render.
Other Powerball wins in Georgia over the years include smaller but life-changing sums awarded to players. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the history of winners in the Peach State is marked by the ordinary and the extraordinary, too.
A sensible Mableton executive stayed cool and kept working his Marietta job after winning $116 million in 2010. The gentleman was busy modeling sound advice from financial experts who typically recommend that Powerball winners wait before giving up jobs or making major changes.
A few years later, a confused food mart clerk in Decatur handed a customer the wrong ticket at precisely the right time. Customer Kathy Scruggs had stopped at the food mart with the intention of purchasing a Mega Millions ticket, Scruggs told the Journal-Constitution. Not wanting to be rude, Scruggs simply purchased the ticket she intended to buy as well as the Powerball ticket mistakenly handed to her by the clerk. The unintended purchase netted Scruggs $25 million. What a happy misadventure and a wonderful reward for good manners.
As luck would have it, down the road a bit in 2016, a married man was leaving to go grocery shopping when his wife reminded him to pick up more than milk. Abiding by his wife's request to buy a Powerball ticket, the man made his purchase at the Publix in Brookhaven and was astonished at the result: $246 million in winnings for his modest household. Happy wife, happy husband.
While these two record-breaking Powerball winners gain headline attention, there are plenty of other good deeds and dividends for Georgia’s lottery program. In fact, since its inception, the Georgia Lottery Corp. has contributed more than $28.7 billion to educational programs, including the HOPE Scholarship Program as well as the state’s Pre-K Programs.
Every year, new Powerball prizes and state records are broken. Maybe this year is your year to win big.