APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – People across the country are already thinking about what they’d buy if they win the Powerball jackpot.
“First thing I would do is build mine and my children’s dream home,” lottery ticket buyer Genevieve Corvette said, “and then I would invest money into my business and set my kids up for the future.”
Appleton residents like Corvette are stocking up on tickets.
“I’m very hopeful, and I’m trying to manifest that I win,” she said. “So, I’m buying 10 tickets at a time. I bought five this morning, and I’m kind of going from store to store, hoping it gives me better odds.”
To put the $1.5 billion jackpot into perspective, it’s over three times more than the annual Lawrence University endowment. And it’s about eight times more than 2022 city of Appleton budget.
But most winners choose the cash payment, which is given in a lump sum of $745.9 million. This amount has Kaukauna Mayor Tony Penterman wishing he could add to the city’s yearly $17.3 million budget.
“That would be our budget for the next, you know, 30 years. That would be great. We’ve got a $5.5 million municipal pool project we’re trying to do. We’re trying to upgrade a bunch of our parks. We could get an amphitheater.”
Penterman himself is taking a shot at the one in 292.2 million odds, with the hope of helping out Kaukauna.
“I would want to share it. That’s just an astronomical amount of money, and if I can help other people out that are struggling, that’s what I would do.”
The annual payment option includes one payment a year for 30 years. For the first three years of those payments, the winner would make roughly the same amount as Aaron Rodgers will over his three-year contract extension.
The $1.5 billion total will also be only $4 billion less than the fortune 500 company Oshkosh Corporation’s market cap.
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