Californian ticket hit the right numbers, lottery authority reveals
Wednesday night's draw of the record $1.6 billion US Powerball lottery has produced at least one winner, according to an early report from the Californian lottery, which confirmed that a ticket bought at a 7-Eleven store in Chino Hills near Los Angeles had the winning numbers 8, 27, 34, 4, 19 and the Powerball of 10.
Spokesman Alex Travesta said that the identity of the owner of the ticket is not yet known, and cautioned that there may be other winners in other participating states.
Analysts estimated before the draw that the chances of winning the jackpot were around 1 in 292.2 million.
Travesta also revealed that 12 other Californian tickets had matched five of the six winning numbers and would be rewarded.
Wednesday's Powerball reached record levels after 20 drawings without a winner, and was estimated to be worth nearly $1.6 billion for the winning numbers. The Multi-State Lottery Association said that an immediate cash pay-out (as opposed to an annuity spread over 29 years) on this size jackpot would be around $930 million.
However, winners have to pay 39.6 percent of the prize in federal income taxes, in addition to any state taxes.
The Association said that ticket sales for Wednesday's draw topped $609 million nationwide, and represented 85 percent of the possible number combinations.
UPDATE: Associated Press reports that there are two other winning tickets bought in Tennessee and Florida, and that the jackpot final amount was $1,586,400,000.
In addition to the jackpot winners, a whopping 81 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers, but not the Powerball, for a $1,000,000 prize: 4 from Arizona, 12 from California, 3 from Connecticut, 12 from Florida, 2 from Georgia, 2 from Illinois, 1 from Indiana, 1 from Iowa, 2 from Kansas, 3 from Kentucky, 1 from Louisiana, 3 from Maryland, 2 from Massachusetts, 5 from Michigan, 2 from New Jersey, 5 from New York, 2 from North Carolina, 3 from Ohio, 1 from Oklahoma, 3 from Pennsylvania, 2 from Rhode Island, 1 from Tennessee, 4 from Texas, 2 from Virginia, 2 from Washington, and 1 from West Virginia..
Of all the second-prize winners, eight tickets — one of the tickets sold in Arizona, one from Florida, the ticket sold in Iowa, one from New Jersey, both tickets from North Carolina, the ticket sold in Tennessee, and one ticket from Texas — were purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1. Because they purchased the Power Play, those particular tickets are now worth $2 million.
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