Daily Reporter staff reports
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana didn’t sell any of the three winning Powerball tickets for Wednesday’s record-breaking $1.6 billion jackpot, but a handful of Hoosiers still walked away with some big cash.
Though Indiana didn’t sell any of the jackpot-winning tickets, one ticket purchased in Terre Haute is worth $1 million, according to the Hoosier Lottery. That ticket matched five of the drawing’s numbers but not the Powerball, making it worth $1 million.
The $1.6 billion jackpot winners’ identities remained a mystery Thursday morning, but they bought their tickets in Florida, Tennessee and California.
Fifteen other tickets sold across Indiana are worth $50,000.
Those tickets matched four of the five numbers and the Powerball. They were sold in Jasper, Madison, Corydon, Seymour, Lapel, Batesville, Indianapolis, Richmond, Terre Haute, Danville and Hobart. Two were also sold in both Fort Wayne and South Bend.
The winners of the world-record jackpot overcame odds of 1 in 292.2 million to land on the numbers drawn Wednesday night, 4-8-19-27-34 and Powerball 10. They can take the winnings in annual payments spread over decades or a smaller amount in a lump sum.
The California ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven in Chino Hills, California, lottery spokesman Alex Traverso told The Associated Press. The winning Florida ticket was sold at a Publix grocery store in Melbourne Beach. The winning ticket in Tennessee was sold in Munford, north of Memphis, according to a news release from lottery officials in that state.
The estimated jackpot amount had risen steadily since Nov. 4, when the big prize was reset at $40 million. Texas Lottery executive director Gary Grief has said this Powerball offered the world’s biggest jackpot.
Not that there aren’t large jackpots elsewhere. Spain’s massively popular Christmas lottery, known as “El Gordo,” is ranked as the world’s richest, though it doles out a single jackpot among millions of prizes, instead of one large jackpot like the Powerball. El Gordo last month showered $2.4 billion across the country.
Powerball tickets are sold in 44 states, as well as the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
But residents in the six states that don’t participate found ways to get their hands on tickets. Some of the biggest Powerball sales have come from cities bordering states that don’t sell the tickets, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. The association oversees the Powerball Lottery, but management rotates annually among member states.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
