Dwane Cole, left, the mayor of Munford, Tenn., speaks inside Naifeh’s Grocery in Munford, Tenn., Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. One of the winning Powerball tickets in Wednesday’s record jackpot drawing of $1.6 billion was sold at the store. Rebecca Hargrove, president & CEO of the Tennessee Lottery, is second from right. (AP Photo/Karen Pulfer Focht) NASHVILLE – A small-town warehouse supervisor turned in one of three tickets splitting the world-record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot on Friday, and swiftly announced that he would take his money now, giving up hundreds of millions of dollars in the future.
But John Robinson and his wife, Lisa, said they won’t stop working and won’t make any wild purchases. They’ll pay off their mortgage and their daughter’s student loans, but have no desire to move from their small, gray, one-story house into a luxurious compound somewhere.
“I’ve never wanted that in the past. I don’t really want that now,” said Lisa Robinson, who works in a dermatologist’s office.
“Big houses are nice,” her husband said, “But also you gotta clean ’em.”
Robinson said he reached out to his brother for help finding lawyers and financial planners before deciding to take the winnings in a single lump sum of nearly $328 million, rather than let the lottery invest the prize and pay him 30 annual installments totaling an estimated $533 million.