{"id":95492,"date":"2025-12-25T04:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T04:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/95492\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T04:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T04:55:09","slug":"south-florida-powerball-players-try-their-luck-ahead-of-christmas-eve-drawing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/95492\/","title":{"rendered":"South Florida Powerball players try their luck ahead of Christmas Eve drawing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With Christmas just minutes away, some South Floridians are hoping for more than presents under the tree. They&#8217;re dreaming of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/powerball-winning-numbers-1-6-billion-jackpot-december-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-absolute=\"true\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/powerball-christmas-eve-winning-numbers-one-point-eight-billion-dollar-jackpot\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The massive prize, the fourth-largest in Powerball history, drew crowds to local gas stations on Wednesday as players lined up for a chance to win big.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why not? It&#8217;s a big payout. I&#8217;m a gambling guy, so why not?&#8221; said Phillipe Cunhao.<\/p>\n<p>Others are betting on faith.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure I will win. I have full faith in God that I am going to win,&#8221; said Leandro Perreira.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For Cesar Mantilla, the lottery is about giving. Before heading to his Nochebuena celebration, Mantilla said he planned to gift Powerball tickets to his family.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mantilla also shared what he would do if he won.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Many things,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But first of all, give thanks to God, help families in need and foundations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The jackpot&#8217;s cash option is estimated at more than $780 million before taxes. For some, that kind of money means life-changing decisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There would be signs. I probably wouldn&#8217;t show up to work for a couple of days,&#8221; Cunhao joked. &#8220;Or ever again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The winning numbers were announced Wednesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Christmas just minutes away, some South Floridians are hoping for more than presents under the tree. They&#8217;re&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,13828,2066,807],"class_list":{"0":"post-95492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-holiday-season","12":"tag-powerball","13":"tag-south-florida"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}