World News for Students of English

21-01-2016 15:00

“Good evening, America, I’m Sam Arlen. Tonight’s jackpot is approaching 1.56 billion dollars, that’s billion with a ‘B.’ I hope you have your tickets, good luck, let’s play some Powerball!”

1.59 billion dollars: a life-changing amount of money, even if it’s split three ways. If you bought a ticket for the biggest ever Powerball jackpot in the US, you had a 1 in 292 million chance of picking a winning combination of numbers. And so far, three lucky people in LA, Tennessee and Florida got them right.

Thousands of people across the US queued up outside shops in hopes of buying that golden ticket.

The jackpot is the world’s largest potential prize for a single winner and the payout is worth nearly $930 million if a winner chooses an immediate cash payout instead of annual payments over 29 years.

The tax man gets his share, too, with a 39.6% federal income tax on the winners, plus any taxes that the winner’s home states may impose.

Even splitting the total and the tax on of top that, that still leaves a truly life-changing amount of money for all winners. How would you spend yours?

Difficult words: jackpot (a large prize), Powerball (a lottery game in the USA that uses numbers on balls), annual (yearly), federal income tax (when the government has you pay money on some of the money that you get), impose (to make a rule), split (to break into pieces).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com