Cheng “Charlie” Saephan, 46, has lived in Portland for 30 years and said at a press conference held Monday by the Oregon Lottery that he and his wife Duanpen, 37, will split the prize in equal parts with a friend.
The friend is Laiza Chao, 55 years old, living in the suburb of Milwaukie, in Portland, who contributed 100 dollars (93 euros) towards the joint purchase of a batch of tickets.
The winners will receive a one-time payment worth $422 million after taxes.
“I will be able to support my family and my health,” said Saephan, who has two young children and worked as a machinist at an aerospace company.
The man, who only last week underwent chemotherapy treatment, added that he would now “find a good doctor” for himself.
Saephan said he was born in Laos and moved to Thailand in 1987 before immigrating to the U.S. in 1994. At the press conference, he wore a banner identifying himself as Iu Mien, a Southeast Asian ethnic group with roots in the South from China.
Many Iu Mein were subsistence farmers and helped American forces during the Vietnam War; After the conflict, thousands of Iu Mien families fled to Thailand to avoid reprisals and eventually settled in the US, especially along the West Coast.
The winning Powerball ticket was sold in early April at a Portland convenience store, ending a winning streak that spanned more than three months.
Under Oregon law, with few exceptions, lottery players cannot remain anonymous and winners have one year to claim the top prize.
The $1.3 billion prize is the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot in history and the eighth-largest among U.S. jackpot games, according to the Oregon Lottery.
The largest US lottery jackpot won was $2.04 billion in California in 2022.
