Powerball: Waiting on the winners

A spokesman for the California lottery, Alex Traverso, said late Wednesday a winning ticket had been purchased in Chino Hills, a modest suburb of Los Angeles. But considering the chances of winning the pot were 1 in 292 million, there’s hardly room to complain.

California’s Chino Hills residents crowd into the local convenience store minutes after the announcement the winning Powerball ticket was purchased there.

The California store selling the winning ticket became a tourist attraction, as onlookers and news crews crowded into the parking lot.

No one in North Carolina won the grand prize in last night’s Powerball jackpot, but several players, including one in Wilmington, won some big bucks. California, Tennessee and Florida consider a lottery winner’s name public record, meaning we will know who bought the lucky tickets but it could take weeks or even months.

Since the jackpot was last won on November 4, a total of $2.65bn (€2.44bn) worth of Powerball tickets were sold.

The winners in Florida and Tennessee have not come forward, lottery officials in those states said, and officials have not said if anyone in California had claimed the prize. If no one had hit the jackpot on January 13, it would have risen to an estimated $2 billion, with a cash value of $1.24 billion.

The winners won’t take home the full $1.5 billion, though.

Missouri did not sell any $1 million tickets, according to the Powerball website. Wednesday’s jackpot started at US$40 million on Nov 7 and was the result of 20 draws with no overall victor. The other two Pennsylvania winners are from Lancaster (Turkey Hill at 5 W. Clay St.) and Lehigh (Top Star Express, 216 Nazareth Pike) counties, Lottery officials said.

Maryland didn’t have a big jackpot victor after Wednesday night’s drawing.

The Florida ticket was sold at a Publix at 3830 Highway A1A in Melbourne Beach in the southeastern part of the state.

“This past Saturday was our single-largest day of Powerball sales ever – $12.3 million just in Powerball tickets”, Tony Bouie with the Arizona Lottery said.

Lottery officials say that in addition to the three winning jackpot tickets sold in the world-record Powerball lottery, there were eight tickets that won $2 million and 73 that netted $1 million.