Son of man who owns the story, recently diagnosed with lung disease, says selling the ticket and earning $1 million bonus are “a blessing”
Matthew Alberre was having fun at his cousin’s high school graduation party when he got a phone call that changed his family’s fortunes.
“What are you doing right now?” the caller asked. “Are you sitting down? You might want to step away for a little bit.”
The party grew a lot more festive after Alberre heard the good news on the other end of the line: His family’s Menifee store had sold the Powerball ticket that hit an estimated $447.8 million jackpot in Saturday night’s drawing.
The ticket — worth the 10th-largest lottery prize in U. S. history, according to lotto officials — hit all five numbers and the Powerball: 20-26-32-38-58, Powerball number 3. It was the only ticket to do so.
Alberre, 26, said he asked the lottery representative on the phone three or four times to make sure it was true.
“I was in shock, ” he said Sunday morning at the store on Bradley Road in the Sun City area of Menifee.
The winner, who hasn’ t come forward, has a year to claim the prize. The soonest the ticket could be redeemed is 8 a.m. Monday, lottery officials said.
The ticket was sold at Marietta Liquor & Deli, which is owned by Alberre’s father, Albeir. Matthew said he does not know which of his customers won the jackpot or what his family will do with the $1 million “retailer bonus” for selling the winning ticket.
“It’s a blessing to be part of this day, ” Matthew said.
The year began terribly for the family because Albeir was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis.
“Starting out the year, it seemed like it was going to be the worst year in the world, and six months later our store hit the Powerball, ” Matthew said. “It’s like God was there providing us with comfort, saying ‘Everything is going to be OK.’”
Albeir, hooked up to an oxygen tank, was out front of the store Sunday morning putting up balloons to celebrate the jackpot. The store is in a Vons-anchored shopping center just off the 215 Freeway at McCall Road.
Matthew said the store caters to motorists passing through as well as retirees who live in Sun City, a community developed in the 1960s as a retirement community that is now part of the 89,000-resident city of Menifee.
The store had already been named a “Lucky Retailer” by the California Lottery.
A store can earn that designation by doing one of three things during the previous calendar year: selling at least one winning ticket worth $100,000 or more, paying out an average of 400 or more winning tickets per week, or paying out an average of $4,000 or more worth of winning tickets per week.
Marietta Liquor had met the second two criteria; with Saturday’s mega-win, it now has a hat trick.
Powerball spokesman Randy Miller said the estimated $447.8 million jackpot prize is based on the winner choosing an annuity, which pays off over 29 years. The lump-sum cash prize would be $279.1 million. Both figures are the pre-tax amounts.
The Powerball prize had been growing since April 1. With Saturday’s jackpot, it resets to $40 million.
The most recent mega-lottery prize won in the Inland area was a Powerball ticket worth $533 million sold in Chino Hills in January 2016. It was one of three winning tickets in that drawing that split a record $1.6 billion jackpot. The couple who bought the ticket waited six months to claim their prize.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
