Tayeb Souami was all smiles Friday as New Jersey lottery officials announced that he was the winner of the $315.3 million Powerball jackpot won in May.
"My day has come," the 55-year-old accountant told a crowd during a lottery presentation Friday. "Hopefully one day it will come for you too."
He added that he did work for a food importing company, but has quit his job since winning the jackpot.
The Little Ferry native elected to take the cash payout, meaning he will receive $183.2 million, before taxes.
"This is big. I am very emotional right now. I like the numbers and I always play with those numbers," he said.
Souami said he found out he was the winner on Sunday morning. He had planned to do some work, but realized his car was dirty. On his way to a car wash, he saw a 7-Eleven and stopped in to check his Powerball tickets.
"When I went inside, I scanned the first ticket and it wasn't the winner. The second ticket was good but it the machine said it must be seen by the retailer," he said.
"The clerk kept saying, 'oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,' and my heart went just like a 'Tom and Jerry' cartoon when the heart went boom boom... and I found out after that I was the one."
He had bought two tickets while returning a product at the ShopRite.
Souami said he will talk to his financial advisor about what to do with the money, but he did say that one of the first things he will do is take care of his family, especially when it comes to the education of his two children.
The father had jus refinanced his house in order to send his daughter to college, he said. He received the check just a week before winning the prize.
Originally from Africa, Souami came to the United States in 1996. When asked what country he was from, he declined to specify.
He described himself as an intermittent lottery player.
Souami purchased the lone winning lottery ticket — with the winning numbers 3, 6, 9, 17, and 56, with Powerball number 25 for the Saturday, May 19 drawing — at a ShopRite located on South River Street in Hackensack.
To say Souami was just lucky would be an understatement. The odds of winning the May drawing were one in 292.2 million.
Souami's windfall is the fourth largest lottery jackpot won in the state lottery's history. Back in April, Richard Wahl of Vernon won the largest amount of money in the state's history, $533 million after playing Powerball.
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Dam must be nice..may the force be with him and his family.
Congratulations to Tayeb Souami from Africa. He won just over $100,000,000.00 after taxes.
He treated the winning ticket like it was trash. When will they learn? I give up.
I am happy that he did the press conference.
Welcome to America Tayeb!!
"He treated the winning ticket like it was trash." ... l failed to find that anywhere in the article Music* Could it be that you confusing this account with another? He was probably born in Algeria, educated guess. Skin tone like "Zizou" - aka Zinedine Zidane.
"The Little Ferry native elected to take the cash payout, meaning he will receive $183.2 million, before taxes."
After taxes he'll get about 1/3 of the advertised jackpot. And when you think about, the advertised jackpot is still before taxes if you take the payments.
Basically there never was a $315.3 million jackpot to claim.
"The second ticket was good but it the machine said it must be seen by the retailer," he said."
So he handed the ticket to a store clerk and was lucky the clerk didn't say "you won $100" and probably what Music meant by "treating the ticket like trash".
I was a bit too harsh. Sorry about that.
He definitely was lucky that he got an honest clerk. Not like what happened to Willis Willis in Texas and a winner here in CA who got his money after lottery security procedures caught the crooked clerk.
I do not want a repeat of, "The largest jackpot never claimed was a Power Ball ticket for $51.2 million in Indiana in 2002."
I do not want to see another Clarence Jackson from Connecticut who tried to claim his prize two days late. He sued the Connecticut Lottery and lost.
I got all of this info. from an Amazon video titled, "LUCKY".
Just do the required media availability and photo celebrity and then hide and be quiet. He and his family will soon be forgotten.
He does have a financial adviser. That is a good start.
Congratulations!! 55 years old and now retired!
No. He has to do like the commercials do, and press his unlock car door button in a garage full of 50 $150,000 cars and roam around aimlessly until he finds the right car that his key unlocked. LOL! “Yeah that kind of rich”. Hahaha yeah right. Lol. You’re right though, be quiet do nothing lol. Lol with that kind of money you could actually change the future. But how? Mercedes g63 AMG wagon would be my first purchase. BMW X6 not impressed tbh. , but it’s good too. Can outrun anything lol.
Zero strip bonds. You’re right. There’s deals to be made. Lol. Only wish that such said deals actually benefited also those said people that are referred too so often in said advertising campaigns ALL OF THE TIME. But they don’t, do they? No they don’t. Revenues go up, but surprisingly benefits go down. All they care about is future players, which they are so desperate to attract. Go figure.
If he took the annual payments with the bonds the lottery takes out to secure funds it would equal to the advertised amount; but who wants to wait 30 years...get put in a higher tax bracket for that long. I'm with him for cash-option.
He's an Accountant so he'll do fine with his $100 million plus. I don't think there is a soul on this website that would gripe with that money.
Wealth fantasies can only go so far...
“lottery funds earmarked for education can simply displace other sources of school funding, such as property taxes, which can then be diverted to other uses, such as the maintenance of state prisons or the salary of state legislators who continue to be paid while they are under federal indictment.”- an old contemporary of mine. No need for names.
Screw the winner, he won. I mean don’t get me wrong cool for him and all, but what about the above statement in quotes. Well, what about it. That should be the real focus. Or are we just pigeons picking up whatever falls in front of us. Ha
I am in California and do not pay any State taxes on lottery winnings. That saves me 13.3%
Plus President Trump cut taxes on lottery winnings from 39.6% down to 37%. When we talk about large lottery winnings that 2.6% makes a big difference.
We could see MM & PB jackpot amounts become equal in size soon. PB lags behind MM by $23 million.
good luck
Ive only been playing the lottery for about 19 months but as far as I've seen so far the PB always increases in pot size at a far quicker rate than that of the MM. Perhaps its due to having that 1Billion dollar plus pot two years ago. The funny thing is that I didn't even here about it until roughly October. Thinking back on it it's quite funny how I never paid much attention to any lotteries before I bought my first ticket. Im 28 now and before I bought that ticket in Oct of 2016 the ONLY other time I can recall hearing anything about a lottery was when my next door neighbor's step mom Elicia Battle lied about winning that jackpot in early 2004. I was in 8th grade at the time. But yeah since then maybe my mind just blanked it out because I don't even remember seeing any billboards or posted notes outside of the local 7 elevens. Im really trying to cut down on my spending for MM/PB because for me it's turned into a bad obsession. Like my minds seeing numbers everywhere. For now Im going to try to only play if the jackpots reach at least 300 M and each month increase that amount by 25M until I either win enough to quit or just quit. Also congrats to the winner
paymentplan-man, You can find Elicia Battle, Lou Eisenberg, Curtis Sharp and Dennis Sanfilippo in The Ticket - Full-length documentary film 1:07:25 on YouTube.
I do not understand when you will increase the amount by 25mil. Will it be each month after the jackpot has reached 300mil? I am a little confused.
Interesting. To say the least. Save it. For real.
Music* Yeah what I meant to say was that I would start playing at 300M and then once it is won I would start again at 325M then 350M and so on and so forth. Just as a way to eventually quit playing since it takes about 16 weeks to reach 300M and its usually won from the 16-21 week period. So after a year I would start playing at 375M roughly then after another year 450M, then 525M,
Well to be honest I'd probably just stop at 600 M and play any time it gets that high. But that doesn't happen all too often so I wont feel bad about that. It's actually more of the playing every week that I'm getting tired of personally. This plan helps to get rid of that and only play when it gets big.
Thank You for your clarification paymentplan-man. It looks like a good plan. Stick with it.
Good Luck to you!
Why wait? Stop playing now and you will stop losing money. Casinos are far better places to gamble.
” Stop losing money?” Are you imply that players do not lose money in Casino’s TB?
I said casinos are a BETTER place to gamble. I didn't say you can't lose, because that's not true. It's less likely you lose, and if you do lose, at least you get to make a lot more wagers with your bankroll.
You do have a point there but for me playing the PB and MM is in it's own way fun. Or at least it was fun but as I said earlier Ive been playing now closing in on 2 yrs so the fun has worn off quite a bit. I don't simply want to just gamble but as you said there's much better ways of going about it. Even the state draw games offer significantly better odds but the PB specifically was what drew me into all things lottery.
Got upgraded on my Caesars card to Diamond status which means I've gambled too much. About 7 weeks ago won $10K, but it had been years since a jackpot was won by me.
Several weeks ago sent the Michigan Lottery an email about their tickets not having an expiration date if you do advance play for say 30 draws max. They finally responded and said it was a good idea and MAY incorporate it. That is the only state that does this to my knowledge and then you have to get a calendar to figure it out.
Interesting enough went to the Powerball on how to play. Forgot that the Powerplay is null and void if it comes in 10X and jackpot is over $150 million. What a rip-off, how often does 10X come in...very rarely. Most times it is stuck on 2X. Also think it is not like Megaplier that goes from 2-5 and applies to the secondary prize so you could theoretically win $5 million. Not so with Powerplay, it stays $2 million no matter what the multiplier ends up being.
Bleudog101- Yesh....hic!! I agree with you about the second tier prize for PB and the fact that you really only see the 10X once if that a year it seems last time we've seen it was Jan 31, 2018 but before that was Mar 1, 2017. Or even if they removed the cap. Although I can understand why that don't. Just imagine back on Jan 13, 2016 when 934 people won the 3rd tier prize of 50k. Lets pretend that everyone played the power play and received the 100k from the 2x Power play. That would have been $93.4 Million payed out. Now lets pretend that all those 934 persons had still played with the power play option but the power play had been a 10X. That would have been $467M payed out. They save so much money by capping it at $150 million. As far as the Megaplier I often times fantasize of just winning a match 5 while its a 5X only because that amount of money realistically sounds much easier to handle on my own and I imagine it comes without all the crazies and extra attention.
Head on the nail; that's all I've ever wanted was to win the five #'s and I'd be set. That's why I like Lucky 4 Life and the occasional Cash 4 Life; the secondary prizes are enough AND the odds are much better than the 'big guys'.
Bleudog101, I finally found out what the name, "Bleudog" came from. It is Bleu cheese. Right?
After I win I will post a big old sign on my door that reads, "GOD LOVES YOU" That should be an icebreaker.
No, Bleu was the same of my late Jack Russell/Blue Heeler dog. Miss him like crazy.
I like your sign idea.
Thank You for the correction. Losing any pet is traumatic. They seem to have short lifespans compared to humans. Even though you can comprehend that it doesn't make it any easier.
Imagine how a lottery winner could spoil their pets. They might even become obese.
Powerplay is not "null and void", there's just no 10x ball in the hopper that they draw.
Because 10X doesn't happen often (1 in 43), removing it doesn't decrease the player payback percentage much. The $1 side bet is worth 50 cents when the jackpot is less than $150 million, and drops to 46 cents when 10X is not available beause the jackpot is over $150 million. Not much of a drop, but a crappy rule. They're getting 50%! Why do they need the extra 4% just because the jackpot is $150 million? The jackpot money comes from ticket sales.
By dropping the probability of getting 10X from 1 in 43 to zero (and no discount of course, still $1), they might lose sales. It depends on how much people care. If enough do, PB brings in less money at a greedy 54% profit margin instead of being satisfied with 50%.
Congrats to winner!!
Can my state have entity collect winnings? I am happy that my state is producing a lot of big winners but their faces are plastered all over.
Last night I won $20 on MM/MP of 2. PB with same set-up of 2 +1 would only pay $14 on PP of 2. Had MP been 5=$50; PB/PP same situation-$35. Ripoff IMO.