Lottery officials head to tiny Tennessee town

Three unremarkable towns in California, Florida and Tennessee achieved overnight celebrity status on Thursday as the places where a trio of winning Powerball jackpot tickets were sold, even as the identities of those who will share the record $1.6 billion prize remained a mystery.

California, Tennessee and Florida sold one jackpot winning ticket each, lottery officials said.

At a media conference in front of the California 7-Eleven, lottery officials presented a symbolic check for US$1 million to the owner of the franchise, Balbir Atwal, for selling a jackpot winning ticket.

Walker matched all five numbers, but he did not pick the winning Powerball, which qualifies him for a $1 million prize – but with a $1 Power Play add-on, he increased his winnings to $2 million.

But as the world waits for the winners to be identified, hoaxers have cropped up claiming they won the prize.

“One of the best parts about this was calling my mom”, Ricardo, 36, said in the release.

Two people won $50,000 in Ada County and Clearwater County.

“It’s great. I voted for it every time it came up in the state legislature”, said Jimmy Naifeh.

“The biggest thing is, I want the money to last as long as we can”, Stewart said.

“I think that’s awesome and I hope they use it for the good and give back to the community”, said another. Two others were sold in Tennessee and Florida.

Wednesday’s drawing included a $2 million prize that was purchased at the Casey’s General Store in Onawa, Iowa. At the peak, 37,000 tickets were being sold per minute, Lopez said. “I wish it was me!”

To receive the full jackpot amount, winners must accept a multi-year annuity, whereas the lump sum cash payout for the jackpot was about US$983.5 million, lottery officials said. In addition to three jackpot winners, more than 26 million other winning tickets will pay out total cash prizes of $273,869,373, Lunsford said.

Saturday night’s Powerball jackpot is for $40 million. Last year, it contributed $1.39 billion.

CBS News said that it would take several hours for lottery officials to know if there were any more winning tickets sold elsewhere in the US.

Shortly after the announcement on Wednesday, a huge crowd packed the 7-Eleven chanting “Chino Hills” to celebrate the historic win in the usually-quiet suburb city of about 75,000 residents.

The big news came from West Tennessee.