Edwin Castro

The Powerball drawing scheduled for Monday 7 November 2022 was delayed more than ten hours because one of the 48 participating lotteries, Minnesota, had not completed its required sales-verification checks. The numbers 10-33-41-47-56 with Powerball 10 were finally drawn at 8:57 a.m. ET on 8 November at the Florida Lottery studio in Tallahassee. The one winning ticket, for an advertised $2.04 billion jackpot, had been sold at Joe's Service Center in Altadena, California. On 14 February 2023 the California Lottery named Edwin Castro as the winner. He did not appear at the announcement and declined interviews, issuing a written statement instead, and took the lump-sum cash option of $997.6 million. Days earlier, Jose Rivera had sued in Los Angeles County, alleging he had bought the winning ticket on 7 November 2022 and that a man he identified as Urachi 'Reggie' Romero had stolen it and told him it was a loser. The California Lottery said it remained confident Castro was the rightful winner. The court dismissed Rivera's case: a tentative ruling in September 2024 became final on 1 October 2024, the judge writing that 'players are solely responsible for securing their tickets against theft, loss, damage, or destruction' and that the person holding a winning ticket is the presumptive owner.

As of October 2025, Castro had spent about $10 million buying 15 Altadena lots burned in the January 2025 Eaton Fire and said he intended to rebuild mostly single-family homes and sell to long-term residents rather than investors, making him one of the town's largest private landowners (Wall Street Journal reporting, carried by FOX 11 Los Angeles). His Malibu house at 20218 Pacific Coast Highway, bought for $3.85 million in September 2023, was destroyed in the January 2025 Palisades Fire, while his $3.98 million Altadena home and the gas station that sold the ticket were spared by the Eaton Fire (Los Angeles Times).