California Lottery tweeted there was a winning ticket sold in the Los Angeles suburb of Chino Hills nearly immediately after the draw.
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Three people in California, Tennessee and Florida possess the winning numbers on their tickets and will now be splitting the 1.5 billion dollar jackpot.
At least three winning tickets were sold in Wednesday night’s record $1.568 billion (€1.46 billion) Powerball jackpot.
Lottery officials in Tennessee say the winning ticket for the record Powerball jackpot in their state was sold in Munford, north of Memphis.
Shortly after the drawing, California Lottery officials were the first to confirm they sold a winning jackpot ticket.
Even though no one in Georgia matched all six numbers, two lucky ticket holders in the Peach State will each get $1 Million for matching all of the numbers except the Powerball.
Thursday night’s Powerball jackpot was an estimated $1.5 billion – which is considered the largest lottery jackpot in the world.
To win the grand prize, the ticket must match all five numbers (in any order) and the red Powerball number.
The identity of the victor is unknown at this time, the officials said.
The prospect of becoming instantly rich sparked a ticket-buying frenzy that was expected to have reached a rate of $1.3 million per minute during Wednesday’s evening rush hour, Gary Grief, executive director of the Texas lottery, told a news conference.
The game is played in 44 states as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Washington D.C. And more than 350,000 other people in our state won prizes ranging from $4 to $100,000.
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Winners are able to collect their prize in annual payments over 29 years or take a share of a lump-sum payment of $930 million, the amount set aside for the jackpot winners. The jackpot again reverts to its starting point of $40 million for Saturday’s drawing. Each ticket had about a 1 in 292 million chance of being the victor.
