Who Won The Powerball? Skater Named Erik Bragg Says He’s $1.5 Billion Powerball Winner — Instagram Photo Gets 86,200 Likes

The huge $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot has sent folks into a frenzy, trying to find out who won the Powerball from Wednesday night. One particular Instagram photo from Erik Bragg claims to show exactly who won the Powerball, in a popular Instagram photo from Erik that has swelled to more than 86,200 likes for Bragg, and is shown below. As reported by ABC News, whoever won the Powerball bought those Powerball tickets in California, Tennessee, and Florida. Erik claims that he is the Chino Hills, California, winner. But Bragg is receiving backlash and being called a fake winner — a guy who didn’t really win the Powerball.

The Powerball jackpot’s winning Powerball numbers were reflected in Erik Bragg’s Instagram post, who held a ticket in front of his face with the matching numbers that were also drawn Wednesday night: 8, 27, 34, 4, 19 — including the red Powerball of 10. The “thisguysthelimit” wrote a description claiming that he is the guy who won the Powerball, saying he bought the ticket in Chino Hills, California, claiming that’s where he grew up.

“OMG I WON $1.5 BILLION!!!!! I’m posting this in case anyone tries to jack me this is proof! Look it up, I bought in chino hills where I grew up! #powerball“

The news has reported that California lotto officials released the news pretty quickly via Twitter that one of the Powerball winning tickets was sold in the Golden State. According to CNN, that California winner will split the Powerball jackpot with other winners. The one Powerball winning ticket sold in Chino Hills, California, will split the winnings with those who won the Powerball from tickets sold in Munford, Tennessee, and in Melbourne Beach, Florida.

As reported by Heavy, prior to the official announcements of who actually won the Powerball, others are trying to get in on the Powerball frenzy by claiming they are the ones who won the Powerball. Bragg is a professional skateboarder, and on Twitter, Erik is claiming that Bragg will give away “1,000” — presumably dollars — to everyone who retweets Erik’s supposed “winning” Powerball photo and follows Bragg.

Folks are already calling foul on that suggestion, with users examining Erik’s supposed winning Powerball ticket with a very serious side eye. As Heavy reports, Reddit users have already picked apart the alleged Powerball winner’s ticket photo with a fine tooth comb, noting how missing lines and numbers likely mean Erik isn’t really the one who won the Powerball.

“This and other numerous Twitter accounts showing the same photo and saying that the ‘winner’ would pay money to anyone who followed him on Twitter and retweeted the photo. This drew the ire of many people, who started insisting the photo was fake. In fact, several threads on Reddit (including this one and this one) examined the photo closely and concluded it was most likely not authentic. They said that the Powerball ticket in the photo has extra lines for numbers that aren’t present on the ticket, which means those lines were Photoshopped out. In addition, some of the numbers on the ticket appear to be different sizes, the posters commented, indicating that the numbers were photoshopped. What do you think? If you look long enough on Twitter, you will find a lot of accounts from different people claiming to have winning tickets and asking for retweets and follows in exchange for money.”

On Imgur, Bragg’s photo has received more than 6,000 likes in 10 hours.

View post on imgur.com

Whenever those folks who really won the Powerball emerge as winners, it will likely be via security footage from when the Powerball winners purchased the tickets sold in California, Florida, and Tennessee. Or, the winning Powerball users will emerge when state lottery officials bring them into a press conference, not necessarily on social media.

[Photo by AP Photo/Alex Brandon]