Locals offer ideas for Powerball jackpot winner

Diana Sahagun

Tuesday, July 28, 1998 | 10:43 a.m.

Las Vegan Laurie Rosenau has caught Powerball fever from a jackpot that is at a whopping $250 million.

The director of property management for Centurion Management Services, Rosenau said she has split a few hundred dollars' worth of tickets with her cousin. They are two of millions of people who are trying their luck at winning the jackpot, which is the largest ever available to one player, breaking the record set in May when a Illinois couple won a $196 million Powerball jackpot.

If someone were to walk into her realty office holding the winning ticket and prize money, Rosenau said she would give them the same advice she gives her clients every day: buy property.

"I would tell them to purchase a great deal of real estate, vacant lands, apartment buildings -- you could get very good pieces of property," she said. "It would also depend on your long-term goals. I would say pick properties that would give them short-term and long-term goals."

Kathleen Nolte, a local agent with Century 21 Sell-Abration Realty, also would tell the winner to purchase real estate, and in her opinion, Las Vegas would be the ideal place to spend winnings on residential property.

"They (the winner) could buy something at Lake Las Vegas (in Henderson). Lots of those lots start at a million dollars," she said. "That is the more expensive area -- you'd be rubbing elbows with some celebrities; it's very exclusive. You could buy a casino if you knew the right people, but I think most people without that expertise would look for high-end residential."

She also recommended the master-planned communities of Rhodes Ranch in southwest Las Vegas, Queensridge at Rampart and Charleston boulevards, and Seven Hills in Henderson as places to buy residential property.

Kevin Kitchin, local branch manager of Prudential Securities Inc., has advice for the lucky winner of the $250 million jackpot if he were to take the prize in a lump sum.

"I would say invest on a conservative basis. Don't take a risk since you have more than enough money," he said. "In the most conservative fashion, a person could make between $5 million and $8 million a year in interest. If they want to get aggressive, they could earn more than that. But there is no need to take huge risks."

A single winner in Wednesday night's drawing could win, before taxes, a lump-sum payment of $137 million or $10 million annually for the next 25 years. A winner who chose the cash option would receive nearly $91 million after taxes. Federal taxes taken out of the original sum would add up to more than $38 million, and Arizona taxes would take another $7.6 million, according to Pamela Johnson, customer-service representative for the Arizona Lottery in Phoenix.

A winner who took the 25-year plan would receive a bit more than $6.6 million after taxes every year until the year 2023. That breaks down to $18,191.78 per day, or $758 per hour.

Rosenau said she isn't fazed by the 1-in-80 million chance she has of winning.

"What the heck, for that kind of money, it's worth the attempt," she said. "If you had lots of money, you would have lots of choices."

If she won the prize, she said she would travel and buy property, "spreading it out so you don't have any one area of concentration."

Results of the world's largest jackpot will be posted in the Sun on Thursday, with sales to be cut off one minute before the 7 p.m. drawing on Wednesday.

Powerball tickets are sold in the nation's capital, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin.