Trains and subways might zip along a little faster in Philadelphia this week after a group of 48 transit workers hit a $172 million Powerball lottery jackpot.
The workers, who will get about $3 million apiece, are choosing to remain anonymous, but range in rank from senior managers in the purchasing department to "a favorite janitor," according to Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) spokesman Richard Maloney.
"They have all asked to be anonymous on this. When you get a windfall, it's easy to be joyous for a second, and then, you know, you don't want everybody in the world to know," Maloney said.
A worker leaving SEPTA headquarters said "no comment" and it was clear he was not changing his mind.
"Some are talking about retiring; some have already said 'no, we're going to continue working.' It's a lot of money, but if you're a young person that's not a whole lot of money," Maloney said.
The workers range in experience with the company, from just under a year to close to 40 years service, and all work in the headquarters in Philadelphia. The "floating pool" the workers took part in has been going on for years, with certain members joining in or sitting a week out depending on personal choice, Maloney said.
It turns out, an IT technician who usual contributes to the pool did not this time.
"She didn't pay up recently, they sent her an email and she didn't respond so she was out on the winnings," SEPTA employee Mitch Schwed said.
Maloney said the 48 SEPTA employees range the whole gamut of workers from upper management, finance, purchasing and union members.
This week, for the $172 million Powerball, workers each put in $5 to buy 120 tickets.
The winning ticket was sold three blocks down from SEPTA headquarters at the News Stand at the Gallery, 9th and Market streets in Center City.
"We're excited to have sold this jackpot-winning Powerball ticket in Pennsylvania, and this will be the second Powerball jackpot we get to award in just five months," Pennsylvania Lottery Executive Director Todd Rucci said. "Today also marks the 23rd anniversary of the April 26, 1989, Super 7 drawing that awarded $115.5 million to 14 winning tickets and still holds the record as the largest jackpot awarded by the Lottery."
Maloney said that despite winning it big this week, no employees had tendered their resignation or booked trips to Hawaii yet.
"Not so far. While it's a lot of money for anybody, for a young person who still has a career, to continue working, it's a nice cushion. If they're nearing retirement, it's a nice nest egg," Maloney said.
Many of the winners worked on the 11th floor, in purchasing, he noted, and are well-versed in managing finances.
"You go up there, you feel the vibe. It's just so great just to walk up on the floor, just to hear somebody that close to you won," SEPTA employee Cynthia Griffin said.
One of the winners was a janitor which thrilled his buddies on the custodial staff.
"I'm very happy he won, he always said when he wins, he wins it with a whole lot of money and he done it today," coworker Wanda Alexander said.
Maloney said some of the winners were very coy about their new found wealth, while others were "dancing in the hallway."
The Pennsylvania Lottery said that no winners had officially come forward yet.
"We're excited to have sold this jackpot-winning Powerball ticket in Pennsylvania, and this will be the second Powerball jackpot we get to award in just five months," Pennsylvania Lottery Executive Director Todd Rucci said. "Today also marks the 23rd anniversary of the April 26, 1989, Super 7 drawing that awarded $115.5 million to 14 winning tickets and still holds the record as the largest jackpot awarded by the Lottery."
On Thursday, standing in front of the store where the winning Powerball ticket was sold, Rucci presented the owner of the News Stand at the Gallery with a $100,000 check for selling that jackpot-winning ticket. Rucci said the store had been a lottery retailer since 2001.
The Powerball winning numbers for Wed., Apr. 25 were 4, 25, 29, 34, and 43, with Powerball number 29.
Powerball drawings are held each Wednesday and Saturday night at 11:00 pm Eastern Time. The winning numbers are published at USA Mega (www.usamega.com) minutes after the drawing.
Congrats to the Lucky 48!
They won $3m each I won $3- lol!
No info provided on how many tickets were bought by the pool and I'm guessing here it was a QP!
Congrats to the Philly Bums.
I smell a lawsuit from the lady who didn't pay up this time around.I hop that I'm wrong,but....
Congratulations to the other 48 winners.
Wow that is Great one of these days We will ........... Congrats to the $48 Winners!
Should have been yours dpoly. Won't these bums listen to reason?
Great win.....CONGRATS to the lucky 48...............wonder when the conspiracy theorists will try to create chaos out this one ? Kudos to the winners
How wonderful, 48 people getting a sudden boost to their bank accounts. Congratulations to all!
Thy've already been on the offense and launched their first attack CD. It's one of the oldest conspiracies about the "East Coast", winning
all the time.
I think what they need is a good old fashioned
to cool them off. 
Congrats to the lucky winners! It's always nice to hear city workers winning.
Hater! ^ SMH.
The "floating pool" the workers took part in has been going on for years, with certain members joining in or sitting a week out depending on personal choice, Maloney said.
The lady's personal choice was to sit that week out, she doesn't get to change her mind after it's over.
Exactly. All she can do is be happy for her colleagues.
Congrats to the 48 transit workers!
They would be smart to offer some type of settlement to the lady who did not play
Most likely she will file some sort of lawsuit
Save the time and the money and pay her off, right or wrong it will be for the best in the long run
Personally,I agree with you,RJOH.But I can just see the lawyers chomping at the bit to try to get her to sue...so they can get a third of her winnings.Happens almost all the time when a pool wins.
Congrats to all 48 winners. One jackpot makes 48 families millionaires. I wish all big jackpots should end this way with many winners not one old couple
That was a "floating pool" that had run for years, if they were to offer a potion of the winnings to every one who had ever contributed to the pool in the past to avoid an anticipated lawsuit the shares would be reduced to only thousands instead of millions of dollars. It's better to let anyone who didn't contribute to the purchase of the winning ticket but think they deserve a potion of the winnings regardless make their claim in court.
There's no reason that couldn't happen more if only winners of large jackpots would commit themselves to finding other deserving families to share an equal potion of their winnings. Perhaps if you play and ever win large, you will do that.
Congratulations to them! This does point out one thing: there needs to be universal winner disclosure publicity levels. Why should winners in, for example, Deleware, be allowed to remain annonymous when those in other states are forced to reveal their name & city they live in? If the powerball & megamillions are multi-state, then there should be one winner disclosure level on all states involved in the lotteries...
$3 million for only a $5 invesment doesnt sound bad at all. glad to hear it went to more then 1 person this time.
People fear lawsuits so much its like the judges just let any lawsuits go to trial. The facts provided so far are clear cut. She had an option to play and she chose not to. Thats all that a judge needs to hear to throw out the case.
Anyways I am happy for the 48 workers, they have an option of leaving their jobs so that some unemployed men can get a shot at earning a descent wage or they can stay on till they are eligible for pension. Either way, I love that they won.
"This week, for the $172 million Powerball, workers each put in $5 to buy 120 tickets."
Lol. Oversight on my part. Thanks!
Someone from the pool even sent the lady an email reminder about paying/joining that particular drawing and she ignored it and never paid in.
She can claim that she never received the email reminder but bottom line is that she never contributed for the winning drawing.
Past contributions only go so far and this case has absolutely no merit if she were to seek sympathy from the courts.
Told yah! Office Pools is the way to go... only if you partake. Do not listen to naysayers. Lawsuits or not, you still walk away with a good chunk of change. Staying away from pools for fear of sharing is just selfish. Spread the luck folks.
Congrats to the winners.
I don't play to "share the wealth" with a bunch of other people.I play to win the whole enchilada!I guess that makes me a selfish s.o.b. in your eyes, but thats just too bad.I can still live with myself.
I don't think the statistics supports pools are the way to go. I am happy for the lucky 48 but it doesn't necessarily speak to me that I should run out and go join a group. Lottery pools winning are few and far between. They key to winning is to pick the winning numbers - lol!
I know a few ppl. that work for this operation, but their not office workers,
their jobs fall into the 3D catagory, difficult, dirty and dangerous.
so i know its none of them that won,
i use to tease them by saying that S.E.P.T.A. really stood for,
Systimaticly
Eliminating
Public
Transportation
Altogether. LOL
I have to agree that the key to winning boils down to picking that ever elusive one line of winning numbers. Pools are not for everyone but it makes sense to be in contention via tens of lines vs. my weekly five lines.
Am so happy all 48 transit workers won the powerball. This means the winning line will be moving much faster with all 48 just that I wish I was in that lucky train . Well am still waiting patiently for my turn lol.
Congrats (not really but everyone likes to make like they are happy for others getting lucky winning), BUT this is exactly why I hate lottery pools. You take a huge, lifechanging sum of dough and reduce it to just a nice, little nest egg that requires many younger folk to keep working present job. That $3 mill is about what I would win if I just played and won my state lottery. And folks, that is not $3 mill cash value they won...no it is the annuity value so each will only receive a little over $100,000 per year. Not lifechanging at all! That is so anti-Powerball or Mega Millions. If you are going to do a pool, limit the number to no more than 5 people.
As soon as I saw 48 won, my immediate thought was "Stupid". Now I want to be stupid rich, so come on Mega Millions. And no, I am in NO pool!
I am very happy to the group. The lady that sat out this round needs to remember, "you snooze , you lose." The group owes her nothing. She didn't put up her five bucks.
The article mentions that they all chipped in $5 each for a total of 120 tickets? shouldn't it be 240 tickets?
Powerball costs $2 a ticket now.
Things happened because of a sequence of events, that led to this pool of workers to be at the right place and the right time. Had there been just
5 members in this pool, this would have created a "new" sequence of events which would have thrown off the timing of who ever was
responsible for buying the tickets at this lucky location. Being a few minutes or even a few seconds earlier or later would have been enough to
invalidate their number from coming up. (I'm assuming QP's here). Maybe the person before or after the designated buyer would have won instead.
The only thing "STUPID" is to assume that by changing all the details of what led to this win, would somehow come out more favorably because of
your deciding to re-quantify the pool numbers. $3,000,000.00 can be life changing to most people, certainly would be for me without a doubt.
Perhaps no retirement, but with good investing and shrewd allocation of these annuities, one could easily be set for life.
Oops, I forgot. I guess it's been a while since I last purchased a PB ticket. Thanks for the clarification
Does this hold the record in pool size?
The other record said 14 winning tickets on 115.5 mill.
I also smell it dragged out with the one who did not chip in the pool and was not among the winners. May find a reason to sue for their share.
Those in their 50's-60's should have no trouble whatsoever retiring with an extra $3 million. Even some in their 30's-'40's if they're single, or married with no kids with little or no debt. It's incredible some believe $3 mil isn't life-changing money. Some people should buy a clue.
Probably not, the TV news show "60 minutes" some years ago did a story about a small town in Texas where everyone but one person entered a lottery pool and won the jackpot. They were doing a story a year later about how it changed the lives of everyone in the town including the person who regretted he hadn't join the pool.
$3 millions is only life-changing money to thoses who don't have it.
It depends on which statistics you look at. How often a pool wins has nothing to do with it. It's about how many people win and how much they win.
So far this year 4 people have won by playing alone and 48 have won as a result of playing in a pool. 12 times as many people won as a result of playing in a pool. 48 people will take home about $1.5 million after taxes (assuming they take the cash). The other 4 will get about $50 million each, as an average. I'd rather have $50 million than $1.5 million, but that $1.5 million is still about $1.5 million more than either of us has won.
No. A group of 100 split $95 million (cash) in 2006. There may have been an even bigger pool, but that's a big group. Even with a very big jackpot they got less than $1 million each before they even paid the taxes.
Well, that's another way of looking at it and I won't debate the point any further as I am sure the audience understands both of us and respective points have been made.
I think we can both agree on your final comment that $1.5m is more than most of us have won and I am definitely included in that STATISTIC
The same logic applies to being poor. There are more poor folks than rich folks, but just because there are more of them doesn't mean being poor is preferable to being rich.
Congrats to the winners....
would rather be in a large pool and win then play by myself and lose
Don't lose your positve attitude!! You will win one day, you may die the next day but you will win eventually!!
jk....I have a warped sense of humor!! 
Actually, groups seldom win compared to individuals.
An individual is much more likely to win than a group.
And as an individual you don't have to split with anybody if you don't want to.
And you don't have to deal with the inevitable lawsuits and the sleazy, slimy, slithering, squirming, worm-like lawyers.
I'd rather play by myself and win than play in a pool and win (and have to share with a bunch of people).
dont we all but in this case you would want to be in the pool
No,I wouldn't.
This week, for the $172 million Powerball, workers each put in $5 to buy 120 tickets.
100 grand is not life changing?? I assume you are making a 100k a year????
Congratulations 48 Pennsylvania winners! This is a good, tidy, Powerball jackpot lump-sum share win of apx. $1.68M each (after initial Fed 25% Income Tax are taken out, and monies received)!
Though the article indicated that some of these 48 jackpot sharing winners will retire, I think that would be foolish, so I hope they didn't officially indicate so to their employer. That is, of course, unless those were the people that were already at retirement age and they are already entitled to the Philly Transit's generous retirement, annual benefits package.
Had there only been 38 lottery pool participants, many would have been able to retire and not care about not earning retirement benefits -- another example of 'lottery pools gone too big'!
Why waste the words if you don't mean them? Besides, there nothing stopping an individual from spending $248 on a lottery drawing same as 48 people each contributing $5 in a pool but a fear or losing it.
She did not pay, she did not play, that is it. She was even reminded to pay and play via email and did not. End of story. Maybe she should not have used the money to buy that pack of cigarettes or whatever else. She will most likely try to sue, but I see very little basis for her suit. I can't for the life of me figure out why you would not want to be part of the pool with a large jackpot like $172 million on the line?
Congratulations to them! This does point out one thing: there needs to be universal winner disclosure publicity levels. Why should winners in, for example, Deleware, be allowed to remain annonymous when those in other states are forced to reveal their name & city they live in? If the powerball & megamillions are multi-state, then there should be one winner disclosure level on all states involved in the lotteries...
Regarding being anonymous
but for now I'll purchase my tickets in another state which does allow a person to be anonymous.
Congradulation's to the winners. I'd certainly be content with that amount.
lol sure you wouldnt want $3 million
Spokesman,Richard Maloney says "$3 Million is not a whole lot of money"for a young person.Let's say each of the winners gets $1.5 million after taxes.At 4.5 percent interest a year,I think it would be around $60,000.I think I could live with that.And that IT technician lady who opted out.What was she thinking "I'll think I'll wait until the jackpot gets back to $12 million".Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.When the lottery jackpot gets way over $100 million,that's when you would want to play.Congrats to the 48 transit workers.