UPDATE: Kansas Lottery officials say the Powerball jackpot has just increased to $1.4 billion for Wednesday night's drawing.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas could be a big winner if someone buys the winning ticket to the $1.3 billion Powerball drawing in the state. The Kansas Lottery says a Kansas winner of Wednesday's jackpot would have to pay at least $40 million to the state. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that is far more than the state's current budget shortfall, which is more than $10 million. Lottery spokeswoman Sally Lunsford says if the winner took the one-time payout of $806 million, the state's tax of 5 percent would generate a bit more than $40 million. After federal taxes, the winner would still get $564 million. If the winner took the annuity payments, the state would withhold 5 percent every year. The state would reap millions but it would be spread over several years.
The Powerball jackpot for Wednesday night's drawing will be the largest lottery jackpot in the world. Not that there aren't large jackpots elsewhere. Spain's massively popular Christmas lottery, known as "El Gordo," is ranked as the world's richest, though it doles out a single jackpot among millions of prizes, instead of one large jackpot like the Powerball. El Gordo last month showered 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) across the country.
