Two Powerball ticket holders have become multi-millionaires overnight in the Arizona lottery and Missouri, winning the largest Powerball jackpot drawing ever.
According to Powerball officials, two tickets matched all six numbers to win the record $587.5 million jackpot. The numbers drawn for Wednesday night for the second-highest jackpot overall in U.S. lottery history are: 5, 16, 22, 23, 29. The Powerball number is 6.
At this time it is still unclear whether individuals or groups purchased the winning tickets, reports The Chicago Tribune.
One of those lucky Powerball tickets was sold around the Kansas City area, but the winner has yet to claim their prize, Missouri Lottery spokesman Gary Gonder said. The ticket holder has 180 days to claim the prize. Gonder said he will soon visit the store where the winning ticket was sold.
Winners in Arizona have yet to come forward as well, according to the state's lottery officials, but they plan to announce where the winning ticket was sold Nov. 28.
The Wall Street Journal calculated that Powerball winnings could be worth as much as $30 million less in top-tax New York than in one of the seven states that don't tax Powerball winnings. The only bad news for the winning ticket holders: Arizona and Missouri unfortunately aren't among those states.
Arizona and Missouri also don't allow jackpot winners to remain anonymous.
Inspired by the largest Powerball jackpot ever, Americans were thrown into a ticket-buying frenzy in the run-up to the Nov. 27 drawing. Chuck Strutt, the Multi-State Lottery Association's director, says skyrocketing sales pushed Wednesday's prize higher. Tickets were selling at a dramatic rate of 130,000 a minute nationwide, according to The Chicago Tribune - about six times the volume from a week ago.
The jackpot increased to $587.5 million by the time of the drawing, a lottery official said. A day earlier, the Multi-State Lottery Association boosted the jackpot from $500 million Tuesday. For Saturday's drawing, the jackpot was at just $325 million.
There have been 16 consecutive drawings since Oct. 6 without a jackpot winner, which has fueled more than 500 million ticket purchases and exponential growth in the jackpot, second-biggest ever after March's $656 million Mega Millions award.
More winners
Indiana Lottery officials say retailers sold two tickets that just missed out on winning a share of the giant Powerball jackpot. Lottery officials say those tickets are worth $1 million, and were sold at convenience stores in Vincennes and Highland. Those tickets matched the first five numbers, but not the Powerball number.
In addition to the winning ticket, Missouri State Lottery officials said two $1 million winning Powerball tickets were also sold in the state-- one in Joplin and the other in Kansas City.
