Annette Spadafore leaves a store with her lottery ticket Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2016, in San Diego.
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To win the grand prize, the ticket must match all five numbers (in any order) and the red Powerball number. Officials with the California Lottery confirmed to ABC News two other winners of the Powerball jackpot were reported in Florida and Tennessee. After no one won Saturday’s drawing, which was valued at more than $900 million, the jackpot increased to $1.3 billion.
If there is only the one victor in California, that person could get a hefty payday, since the state does not tax lottery prizes. Most winners opt for a one-time payment.
From single tickets to lottery pools, customers across ME were buying Powerball tickets with the hope of hitting the jackpot – a $1.5 billion jackpot.
One winning ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven in Chino Hills, California, said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for that state’s lottery.
The identities of the winners are not yet known.
Powerball tickets are sold in 44 states and lottery official say Texas is among top states ticket sellers. But the odds of winning are still extraordinarily slim, at 1 in 292.2 million.
Lottery officials said 85 percent of possible number combinations had been selected by midday.
“I promise”, said Rosario Abuyo, bought a Powerball ticket.
The Powerball numbers from Wednesday night’s drawing are: 8, 27, 34, 4, 19, with Powerball 10.
While most people aren’t expecting to win, they know what they would buy if they did.
Pending results from the other 43 states that play the game, the victor in California could walk away with the total prize.
The latest Powerball jackpot is now up to $1.5 billion, setting off a frenzy of Americans rushing to convenience stores to purchase tickets. In fact, the Powerball jackpot was over a billion dollars higher than were it stood a week ago: $524 million.
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Six states have no lotteries of any kind. The jackpot reset to $40 million for the next drawing three days later and is now more than 36 times as large after being rolled over 19 consecutive times.
