SALEM, Ore. (AP) — One of the winners of a $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot this month is an immigrant from Laos who has had cancer for eight years and had his latest chemotherapy treatment last week.
“I will be able to provide for my family and my health,” he said, adding that he’d “find a good doctor for myself.”.
Saephan, who has two young children, said that as a cancer patient, he wondered, “How am I going to have time to spend all of this money?
After they bought the shared tickets, Chao sent a photo of the tickets to Saephan and said, “We’re billionaires.”
Saephan said he was born in Laos and moved to Thailand in 1987, before immigrating to the U.S. in 1994.
The $1.3 billion prize is the fourth largest Powerball jackpot in history, and the eighth largest among U.S. jackpot games, according to the Oregon Lottery.
The biggest U.S. lottery jackpot won was $2.04 billion in California in 2022. »