Someone in South Carolina is $400 million richer: Single Powerball winning ticket sold
LM Otero / AP
Larry McKinney waits for his Powerball lottery ticket at the Fuel City store Wednesday in Dallas, Texas.
Jackpot!
A single winning ticket was sold for the $400 million Powerball drawn Wednesday — one of the biggest prizes in the multi-state game ever, lottery officials announced early Thursday.
The one grand prize winner was purchased in South Carolina with the numbers 7, 10, 22, 32, 35 and a Powerball of 19.
The ticket holder can claim an annuity valued at $400 million or take a lump sum in cash of $223 million — about $134 million after taxes, officials said.
After 11 weeks of winnerless drawings, one lucky ticket snagged the $399 million powerball jackpot Thursday night, purchased at a gas station in Lexington, South Carolina. The winner has not yet come forward. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.
The lucky ticket was sold in Lexington, according to South Carolina Educational Lottery Executive Director Paula Harper Bethea. The town of just under 20,000 is right in the middle of the Palmetto State.
South Carolina lottery officials advised the winner to "sign the back of the ticket, put it in a safe location, seek financial or legal advice from a trusted source, and then come forward to claim the ticket."
A press conference was planned for 11 a.m. ET Thursday at the store where the ticket was sold, a Murphy USA on Augusta Road.
Powerball had put the odds of winning the jackpot at 1 in 175 million after 11 winnerless drawings had passed since Aug. 10.
The latest jackpot comes after a whopping $448 million prize in early August, which was split among three tickets.
A group of 16 Ocean County, N.J., employees — dubbed the "Ocean's 16" — who had all gone through Superstorm Sandy together and had each put in $6 to purchase lottery tickets split that take with Mario Scarnici of South Brunswick, N.J., and Paul White of Minnesota.
Wednesday's jackpot was the fourth largest ever for Powerball and the fifth largest ever in any US. lottery.In May, an 84-year-old widow in Florida won the biggest Powerball jackpot in history — a $590 million haul. Gloria C. MacKenzie bought her golden ticket at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills.
The jackpot had soared since Saturday, when no one won the $317 million top prize.
Powerball is played in 43 states, Washington and the U.S. Virgin Islands
The game's prizes are getting larger, in part because the ticket price rose to $2 from $1 in January, and because California, the most populous state, joined in
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