$241 Million Powerball Prize Claimed By 20 Quaker Oats Workers In Iowa

By Connor Adams Sheets | June 20 2012 8:19 PM

Twenty Quaker Oats workers in Iowa are suddenly some of the richest people in Cedar Rapids after claiming their $241 million prize after winning Powerball on June 13.

Reuters

The winners of the $254 million CT Powerball are three wealth managers from Greenwich, Conn.

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The group, who called themselves the Shipping 20 and established a trust by that name, chose to take the lump sum option for their winnings, meaning their actual haul was $160.3 million after taxes, according to the Quad-City Times. Or more than $8 million apiece. Not too shabby for picking a few numbers.

The crew all headed to Des Moines on Wednesday to turn in their Lottery ticket and pick up their oversized check.

That's a whole lot of zeros, Iowa Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer said when the Lottery ticket verification machine announced the payout, according to the Times. They're obviously having a great time.

Oddly enough, when the existence of a winner was announced last week, no one initially claimed the prize, prompting people to wonder if they would ever figure out who had won the near-quarter-billion.

Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich said at the time that it can take days or weeks for someone to realize that they have a winning ticket. It took exactly a week for the Shipping 20.

We encourage our jackpot winners to consult a financial or legal adviser before claiming a prize of this size, Rich said shortly after the drawing was announced. This truly is a life-changing amount of money and we want our winners to have the information they'll need as they make their decisions. Whoever has the winning ticket should sign it immediately if they haven't already done so for safe keeping.

The winning numbers for the Lottery drawing that left 20 Iowans with fat stacks of cash this month were 7, 10, 14, 33, 57 and Powerball 18.

The ticket was purchased at a Hy-Vee grocery store at 5050 Edgewood Road in Cedar Rapids, and it was the all-time largest win in the Iowa Lottery, according to the Des Moines Register. The jackpot did fall short of the Powerball record of $365 million, which was claimed by eight Nebraska meat-packing plant workers in 2006.

The Quad-City Times reports that this was the seventh time a top Powerball prize has been won in the Hawkeye State.