The $1.326 Billion Win, Mid-Chemotherapy
On April 6, 2024, Cheng 'Charlie' Saephan of Portland, Oregon, won a $1.326 billion Powerball jackpot — one of the largest lottery prizes in U.S. history — and the winners were revealed at an Oregon Lottery press conference on April 29, 2024. Saephan, a 46-year-old machinist who immigrated from Laos in 1994, had been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer for eight years and wondered aloud, 'how am I going to have time to spend all this money?' He split the prize with his wife Duanpen and friend Laiza Chao, who had chipped in $100 toward the tickets, and the trio took a lump sum of $422 million after taxes.
The winning ticket for the April 6, 2024 Powerball drawing was sold in early April at a Plaid Pantry convenience store in Portland, Oregon, ending a winless streak that had stretched for more than three months. The jackpot had grown to $1.326 billion — the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot in history and the eighth-largest among all United States jackpot games. The cash value was $621 million before taxes for a winner who took the lump sum instead of the annuity paid over 30 years.
The winner was revealed on April 29, 2024, at a news conference held by the Oregon Lottery. Cheng "Charlie" Saephan, 46, of Portland, is a machinist for an aerospace company who immigrated to the United States from Laos in 1994, after moving to Thailand in 1987. He wore a sash at the news conference identifying himself as Iu Mien, a Southeast Asian ethnic group with roots in southern China, many of whose families fled to Thailand after the Vietnam War and eventually settled in the United States. Saephan graduated from high school in 1996 and has lived in Portland for 30 years. He has two young children, and he had been undergoing chemotherapy for cancer for eight years, with his latest treatment the week before the announcement.
Saephan did not win alone. He and his 37-year-old wife, Duanpen, are taking half the money, and the rest goes to a friend, Laiza Chao, 55, of the Portland suburb of Milwaukie, who had chipped in $100 toward a batch of tickets. After they bought the shared tickets, Chao sent Saephan a photo of them and joked, "We're billionaires." It was a joke before the drawing, he said — but the next day they won. Chao was on her way to work when Saephan called her with the news: "You don't have to go anymore." The three are taking a lump sum payment of $422 million after taxes.
What Saephan said at the news conference is what makes this win different from most jackpot stories. "I will be able to provide for my family and my health," he said, adding that he would find a good doctor for himself. As a cancer patient, he wondered aloud, "How am I going to have time to spend all of this money? How long will I live?" In the weeks before the drawing he had written out numbers for the game on a piece of paper and slept with it under his pillow, praying, "I need some help — I don't want to die yet unless I have done something for my family first."
Under Oregon law, lottery winners generally cannot remain anonymous, with only a few exceptions, and the Oregon Lottery said it had to go through a security and vetting process before announcing who had come forward to claim the prize. Winners have a year to claim the top prize. The biggest jackpot in American history remains the $2.04 billion Powerball won in California in 2022.
A windfall is usually measured in dollars, but Saephan's story measures it in time. The money does not change his diagnosis, and he said so plainly at the moment of his greatest luck. What it buys is the best care available, security for his wife and children, and freedom from the ordinary worry of work for his friend. That is the lesson the story carries: a windfall can buy time and care, and Saephan's first stated plan was family and health, not extravagance — a reminder that the value of sudden wealth depends on what you need it for, and how long you have to enjoy it.
The lesson: A windfall can buy time and care — Saephan's first stated plan was family and health, not extravagance.
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