Showing posts with label winning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winning. Show all posts

Friday, May 24, 2013

Winning ticket for $590.5 million Powerball lottery sold in Florida

By Brendan O'Brien

(Reuters) - A single winning ticket for a record Powerball lottery jackpot worth $590.5 million was sold in Florida, organizers said late on Saturday, but there was no immediate word about who won one of the largest jackpots in U.S. history.

The winning numbers from Saturday night's drawing were: 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52, with a Powerball number of 11. The odds of winning were put at 1 in 175 million.

The winning ticket was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, a suburb of Tampa, according to the Florida Lottery.

The winner or winners had not come forward as of Sunday morning, said Connie Barnes, a Florida Lottery spokeswoman. The winning ticket holder's name will become part of the public record because a check will be made out to the winner, but that person or persons need not appear in public to acknowledge the prize, Barnes said.

The grand prize, accumulated after two months of drawings, surpassed the previous record Powerball payoff of $587.5 million set in November 2012.

The largest jackpot in U.S. history stands at $656 million, won in the Mega Millions lottery of March 2012. That prize was split between winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois.

The Multi-State Lottery Association, based in Iowa, announced the Powerball results in a brief message on its website, saying, "There was one winner sold by the Florida Lottery for the last drawing's $590,500,000 grand prize."

The extremely long odds of winning did not deter people from buying tickets at staggering rates. California was selling $1 million in tickets every hour on Saturday, said Donna Cordova, a spokeswoman for the California Lottery, which has only been selling Powerball tickets since April 8.

The $2 tickets allow players to pick five numbers from 1 to 59, and a Powerball number from 1 to 35.

(Additional reporting by Karen Brooks in Austin, Texas, and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles.; Editing by Daniel Trotta, Christopher Wilson and Cynthia Osterman)


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Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Woman accidentally buys winning $14 million lotto ticket

File photo of lottery ticket (Thinkstock)File photo of lottery ticket (Thinkstock)


A single mother of four sons accidentally purchased an extra lottery ticket. Another dollar down the drain? Nope.


Thuan Le told NBCLosAngeles.com that she normally she buys $4 worth of Powerball tickets and one $1 SuperLotto Plus ticket.


This time, Le accidentally put an extra buck into the self-service machine, purchasing another SuperLotto Plus ticket.


It was—no doubt—the smartest mistake she ever made. NBCLosAngeles.com reports that Le plans to use the $14 million windfall to buy a home, travel and visit relatives in Vietnam.


One of her sons told Lotto officials that he and others thought Le was joking after she called to tell them the good news, according to ABC News.


"We thought she was joking," her son said, "but we thought, would she really joke like this? My older brother said, 'Yes, she would.'"


Le’s (very) lucky numbers were 5, 33, 25, 46 and 32. The Mega number was 26.


According to the California Lottery's official site, the odds of getting all five numbers and the Mega bonus number on the SuperLotto Plus are 1 in 41,416,353.


View the original article here