ReportWire

Tag: Edwin Castro

  • $2B Powerball Winner Vows to Rebuild Fire-Ravaged Hometown

    [ad_1]

    Posted on: October 17, 2025, 03:19h. 

    Last updated on: October 17, 2025, 03:19h.

    • Lottery billionaire pledges to rebuild fire-ravaged Altadena community
    • UCLA study reveals severe racial impact of Eaton Fire
    • Local reactions mixed as Castro buys scorched neighborhood lots

    Powerball’s $2 billion winner Edwin Castro has pledged to rebuild his hometown of Altadena in Los Angeles County, Calif., much of which was destroyed by wildfire in January.

    Powerball, Edwin Castro, Altadena, Eaton Fire, wildfire recovery
    Edwin Castro, above, gave his first interview since his 2 billion lottery win to the WSJ as he pledged to restore properties in his hometown, Altadena, Calif. (Image: Fontoura)

    The world’s richest lottery winner is one of the biggest buyers of scorched lots in the town, which are being purchased by investors from residents who have chosen to sell up rather than rebuild.

    Castro bought his winning lottery ticket in 2022 for $10 from a gas station, Joe’s Service Center, on the corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Woodbury Road in Altadena. The fire burned more than 100 homes in Fair Oaks Avenue but spared Joe’s, prompting The New York Times to describe it as “the luckiest gas station in America.”

    Devastating Fire

    Many others were not lucky. The Eaton fire broke out on the evening of January 7, 2025, in Eaton Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains. Fueled by powerful Santa Ana winds, it swept down into the foothill communities, hitting Altadena especially hard.

    Some 48% of Black households and around 37% of non-Black households were destroyed, according to a UCLA study. That suggests that around 39% of all households were wiped out – devastating for a community of around 43K people.

    In total, 31 people died in the numerous California wildfires of January 2025, at least two in Altadena.

    I want it to feel like the old neighborhood,” Castro told The Wall Street Journal in his first words to the media since his gargantuan windfall. “Like if you put all those houses pre-fire in a time bubble.”

    Castro is looking to build homes for families who want to settle in Altadena, rather than those wanting to rent them out. But he emphasized that he was also looking to make a few bucks from the venture.

    “The profit margin doesn’t have to be egregious. But I’m not building these homes just to give them away,” he told WSJ, adding that they might take ten years to build.

    Man of Mystery

    Castro, who lost a $3 million Malibu mansion to the California fires, has largely been an enigma since his win, but he revealed some details about himself this week to WSJ.

    He said he grew up in a middle-class family, and his father was in construction. He was a Boy Scout who spent his childhood going on fishing trips, fixing up old cards, and obsessing about Pokémon and Dungeons & Dragons.

    He was renting his home when he won big and working as a private architecture consultant. He is single and wants kids “like yesterday.”

    But not everyone is convinced by Castro’s pitch. One resident, whose house was damaged by smoke, complained to WSJ that he was “just another person trying to get some profit.”

    [ad_2]

    Philip Conneller

    Source link

  • Why a Lottery Ticket Winner Is Buying Lots In His Hometown

    [ad_1]

    For the residents of Altadena, California, the beginning of 2025 began with fire, when the devastating Palisades and Eaton fires started burning between January 7, and January 9. Those fires joined a series of smaller fires to burn more than 16,000 buildings across southern California—9,414 of which were in Altadena. Months later, a “second wave of disaster” has hit the area, according to the Wall Street Journal, as investors look to profit off the scorched land.

    But one investor is not like the others.

    Edwin Castro, 33, who won $2 billion in 2023 after buying a winning Powerball lottery ticket in a local gas station, is hoping to bring the streets of his hometown of Altadena back to its pre-fire state, and he says he wants to make sure families are prioritized in the rebuild.

    “I want it to feel like the old neighborhood,” Castro told WSJ. “Like if you put all those houses pre-fire in a time bubble.” 

    With over 9,000 structures gone in Altadena due to the fires, and many residents living in temporary housing waiting to rebuild, Altadena is primed for new developments.

    As a real estate development novice, Castro has hired a team of experts, from a design consultant to craft designs and deal with permits, to a community outreach team to connect with local nonprofits and earn the resident’s trust. To date, Castro has spent $10 million for 15 lots of land—and while many investors are pitching multifamily homes— he is proposing single-family units that resemble the area’s architectural vernacular.

    According to the Journal‘s report, Castro predicts the massive real estate development project—which includes three-bedroom homes in the small lots, and flashier offerings for the larger pieces of land—will take around 10 years to complete. And while Castro isn’t planning on overcapitalizing on the situation, although he still looks at it as a business opportunity, WSJ revealed.

    “The profit margin doesn’t need to be egregious,” he said. “But I’m not building these homes just to give them away.”

    Prior to his rebuilding initiative, Castro remained out of the spotlight, using his winning on various investments, including vintage Porsches and multimillion dollar homes, two of which also burned down earlier this year.

    And while many residents are praising Castro’s efforts, with one telling WSJ that he felt “better about him than anybody else because he’s from the area,” many are skeptical of Castro’s intentions and long-term effects on diversity.

    “The fear is that Black homeownership will drop,” one resident told WSJ.

    According to the Journal, Castro says he plans to sell to only those looking to settle down in his hometown, not others looking to buy the developments are rentals or investments. Additionally, he says he is done buying lots, only planning to finish the 15 lots.

    “This is for a family that wants to move in,” Castro told WSJ. “Those are the people that need to be looked out for right now.” 

    [ad_2]

    María José Gutierrez Chavez

    Source link

  • Twitch Streamer’s Soccer Team Pulls From $1M Tourney Over Racism Allegations

    Twitch Streamer’s Soccer Team Pulls From $1M Tourney Over Racism Allegations

    [ad_1]

    A soccer team owned by FIFA streamer Edwin Castro has withdrawn from an inaugural soccer tournament after a member of the team allegedly used a racial slur against an opposing player in a match.

    If You Want To Get The Most Out of Mario Strikers: Battle League Make Some Friends

    Dallas United was playing West Ham United F.C. in the inaugural The Soccer Tournament (or TST), a 7v7 tournament with a $1 million prize for the winning team taking place in Cary, North Carolina on June 1. The Dallas team, which is composed of “mostly amateur players from the Dallas area,” according to ESPN, was up 2-0 in the match against West Ham when the incident reportedly took place.

    Video clips on social media show West Ham players gathered around the match’s referee, with center back and former English Premier League player Anton Ferdinand at the center of it all. One clip appears to show Ferdinand telling the ref “I’m here to set a precedent now,” before the entire team decided to walk off the pitch. Though it’s unclear what was allegedly said, the chatter on social media and on sites like The Daily Mail suggest the n-word was hurled at Ferdinand by a Dallas United player.

    The official TST twitter account later shared an update, saying that it had “[conducted] an investigation into the final moments of the match between West Ham United and Dallas United” and “concluded that Dallas United violated TST’s code of conduct.”

    “We have been in dialogue with leadership from both clubs and we are all aligned that the best path forward is Dallas United withdrawing from competition,” the statement also reads.

    Though Castro’s Dallas squad initially shared a tweet stating that it had launched its own internal investigation into what took place during the match and was “cooperating fully” with TST’s investigation, a later tweet seemed to suggest the squad’s stance is that the “accusation” against them is false. “In light of the shadow cast by an opposing player’s accusation during tonight’s match, the Dallas United players unanimously decided to withdraw from the remainder of the competition,” read a tweet posted just a few hours after the initial one. Kotaku reached out to TST and Castro for comment.

    Castro has 3.5 million followers on his Twitch account and over 1.5 million on Twitter. He is best known for his FIFA streams. In a March 7 video posted to the Dallas United Twitter account, Castro likens owning the team to “[playing] FIFA in real life.”

    As reported by ABC 11, North Carolina’s branch of the news organization, Ferdinand spoke to reporters after West Ham’s final match on June 2, praising TST’s swift response to the allegations. “I need to go on record and say the topic of conversation that was laid bare yesterday is better than football. The way that TST dealt with it so swiftly, the no-nonsense action, a lot of people around the world, organizations around the world, can take note,” he said.

    West Ham and their opponents reportedly knelt in solidarity before Friday’s match, as Ferdinand’s team considered not continuing on in the tournament after the racially charged incident. “When somebody of white heritage hears somebody of my heritage speak of [such racism], it’s almost like it’s a broken record, we’ve heard it before. But when you hear it from somebody who looks like you, it makes you take note. So I think everybody needs to come together to fight as a collective. And if we do that, football can be the catalyst for change in society. But society is going to have to want to change with it,” Ferdinand said during the press conference.

    As reported by the BBC, Ferdinand isn’t the only former pro footballer competing in the tournament—Clint Dempsey, Landon Donovan, and Cesc Fabregas are a part of it, as well, and professional clubs Borussia Dortmund and Wrexham (owned by actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney) have teams representing them, as well.

    This is also, sadly, not the first time Ferdinand has faced racism as a Black man in football. According to the BBC, a former Chelsea player was fined and banned four matches back in 2011 for racially abusing him when he was a defender on Queens Park Rangers. Racism has no place in football, gaming, or otherwise.

    [ad_2]

    Alyssa Mercante

    Source link