A ticket sold in Oregon, United States, has matched all six numbers drawn in the Powerball lottery game to win the $340-million jackpot.
The drawing on Wednesday capped off a day of heavy sales in all 27 states where Powerball is played, plus the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands.
It was the largest jackpot in the game’s history and the second-biggest lottery jackpot in US history.
The winning numbers drawn on Wednesday evening were 7, 21, 43, 44, 49 and 29.
There were 47 tickets sold that matched the first five numbers drawn but failed to match the Powerball to win $200 000 each.
The Powerball jackpot had been snowballing since mid-August, with 20 straight drawings in which no one won the grand prize.
”We’re swimming in it today,” said Marianne Ward at the Cash & Dash in Little River, South Carolina. ”We’ve sold more than $2 000 in tickets since 6am.”
Mary Neubauer, spokesperson for the Iowa Lottery, said hundreds of ticket buyers had played a set of numbers from the ABC drama Lost, which featured a character who won $156-million by playing a string of digits obtained from a patient in a mental institution: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42.
”I just think it speaks to people’s fascination with numbers and the what-if factor,” Neubauer said.
The odds of hitting all six numbers were one in 146-million.
Susie Siebke crossed the Mississippi River from Illinois to buy 25 Powerball tickets for herself and five co-workers.
”We only buy just whenever it gets this high,” Siebke (30) said as she stood in line at a convenience store in Bettendorf.
The biggest lottery jackpot in US history was $363-million, won by two ticket holders in Illinois and Michigan in 2000. — Sapa-AP