1 winning Powerball ticket sold north of Memphis

LOS ANGELES At least one unidentified person in California won the massive $1.59-billion Powerball lottery on Wednesday, officials said after drawing the winning numbers for the world’s largest potential jackpot for a single player.

The Maryland Lottery announced late Wednesday that three $1-million tickets were sold in the state.

The Powerball numbers from Wednesday night’s drawing are: 8, 27, 34, 4, 19, with Powerball 10. However, that staggering $1.6 billion jackpot will be split since winning tickets were sold in California, Florida and Tennessee.

The 7-Eleven convenience store that sold the winning ticket was quickly surrounded by people in the mood to celebrate. The odds of winning in Powerball are said to be one in 292.2 million, media reports said.

The next Powerball drawing, scheduled for Saturday, has a jackpot of just $40 million. Two other winning tickets were sold in Munford, Tennessee, and Melbourne Beach, Florida, lottery officials in those states said.

Lottery officials have not said where in North Carolina those tickets were sold, but did say that three more tickets sold in the state are worth $100,000 and 14 are worth $50,000.

None of the winners’ identities has been revealed, but the California ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven in Chino Hills, California lottery spokesman Alex Traverso told The Associated Press.

The prize has climbed to an estimated $1.5 billion, easily surpassing all other lotteries.

The final jackpot for hitting all six numbers tonight was pegged at $1.586 billion, a record for any US lottery game.

It is the second Powerball jackpot victor in Tennessee in a row.

To get the full amount of the prize, winners must accept a multi-year annuity instead of a lump sum payout, which was $983.5 million. Because no one won for several months, the prize kept growing, along with ticket sales in the 44 participating states, as well as the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.