Tickets that were sold in California, Tennessee and Florida matched all six numbers and those players will share the record $1.58 billion jackpot. $1 million will be awarded to the small town store.
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The 7-11 store where a winning Powerball ticket was sold is seen in Chino Hills, California.
Excited residents gathered Thursday at Naifeh’s Food Mart in Munford as state lottery officials presented the store $25,000 for selling this week’s winning mega-jackpot ticket.
The Powerball jackpot had been growing since November, and when it reached $900 million on January 9, people were already shocked and in awe – so imagine the frenzy when it climbed past the number of digits that can be read on the lotto boards!
Now that three lucky people have won that whopping $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot, the pot has been reset and we’re back to square one.
Office workers dashed out between meetings to buy tickets, fantasising about what they would do with the winnings, and commuters in NY joked about scooping the jackpot to save them from the gloomy deep freeze of winter. Because each had the Power Play feature added and the multiplier in Wednesday’s drawing was two, the $50,000 win was doubled to $100,000, according to lottery officials.
Lottery officials said it could be several hours before it is known whether there are other winners in the 44 states, Washington, DC and two U.S. territories where Powerball is played.
The winners can either take lump sums or choose to accept annual payments over 29 years.
Missouri did not sell any $1 million tickets, according to the Powerball website. Though the numbers matched Wednesday night’s Powerball, they later realized the ticket was for Saturday’s Powerball. The victor who purchased the ticket at Melbourne Beach Publix, has not been identified yet.
Odds of winning the jackpot are one in 292,201,338.
California lottery spokesman Russ Lopez said that the state’s victor should acquire attorneys, accountants and financial planners.
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The jackpot, which had stood at $1.5 billion – a world record in the lottery industry – for much of the day, eventually crept up to almost $1.6 billion, ABC News said.
