£219m US lottery winners opt for cash up front

Three of the four winners of the £210m Powerball jackpot claimed their shares yesterday, including an elderly couple who hid their winning ticket in a box of cereal, a married mother of three and a 46-year-old ex-convict.

‘‘It’s a poor man’s dream,’’ David Edwards said in Louisville, Kentucky.

The jackpot is the third-biggest lottery prize in US history.

The four winning tickets in Saturday night’s multistate lottery were sold in Kentucky, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Delaware.

Except for the holder of the Delaware ticket, all the winners were identified yesterday and all chose the lump-sum payment of £29.6m, before taxes.

With each winning ticket worth £52.5m, winners also have the option of taking £2.1m per year for 25 years.

Up first in the parade of jackpot winners was Edwards, who said he was recently laid off from his fibre optics job, needs back surgery and had no idea what he was going to do once his unemployment benefits ran out.

‘‘A lot of people work hard and a lot of people are out of work. And you dream you want a better life, and playing this lottery has done that for me,’’ said Edwards, whose fiancee, 26-year-old Shawna Maddux, stood by his side.

He bought £6 worth of tickets - seven for himself and one for his fiancee - just 90 minutes before the draw.

‘‘I said, ‘Help me Lord. I know it might not be right of me to ask you this, but can you just let me win this?’’’ he said.

Edwards has an 11-year-old daughter from a previous marriage.

Kentucky corrections officials said Edwards was convicted of robbery in 1981 and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He was paroled and returned to prison several times before serving out his sentence in 1997.

He also has a conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Asked about his record, Edwards said: ‘‘I’ve made some mistakes in my past ... but now I can do something positive with my future.’’

Sporting a suit with his long hair gathered into a ponytail, Edwards said he and Maddux are thinking about a wedding in the tropics - and that he will probably buy a Rolls-Royce he has had his eye on.

‘‘I’m not one to take a lot of money and splurge on mansions and this and that, but I am sure buying that Rolls,’’ he said.

When 60-year-old Pat Wales from Maine realised she had won she tried to awaken her 70-year-old husband, telling him, ‘‘Erwin, we won the Powerball.’’

‘‘And he said, ’Uh huh,’ and he rolled over and went back to sleep.’’

The couple then hid their winning ticket in a cereal box until they made their claim.

In Minnesota, medical records clerk Sheryel Hanuman, 41, beamed as accepted her share of the jackpot.

She and her husband, Chrisna, have three sons, aged 11, 10 and 9, and she said she may buy a new house.

‘‘I better pinch myself,’’ said Hanuman, who bought five tickets at a Minneapolis grocery as she stopped to pick up a card for a Saturday night wedding.

‘‘It means a little more freedom,’’ she said of the money. ‘‘It means I’ll be able to help my family in ways I wouldn’t even have thought of prior to this.’’