History’s largest-ever lottery jackpot has at least three lucky winners.
Three states — California, Florida and Tennessee — sold winning tickets for the monster $1.58 billion Powerball lottery, according to California lottery spokesman Russ Lopez.
Six numbers — 08, 27, 34, 04, 19 — and Powerball 10 were drawn Wednesday night in the historic lottery event.
The three winners will split the colossal jackpot resulting in $528.8 million prize for each, according to officials.
One of the winning tickets was sold at a 7-Eleven in Chino Hills, California, officials said.
Local TV helicopters captured images of a large crowd of people gathering at the 7-Eleven, with crowds chanting “Chino Hills! Chino Hills!”
Tennessee’s winning ticket — the state’s second Powerball jackpot winner in a row — was sold in Munford, the Tennessee lottery said in a statement.
There were no details immediately available on the winner in Florida. Powerball is played in 44 states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
It was the first time that a ticket matching all five numbers and the Powerball number had been sold since this jackpot began at $40 million on Nov. 7.
With no winner, the pot rolled over again and again — 20 times in all, swelling to $500 million last week and then $900 million in Saturday’s drawing, and then to $1.586 billion.
The jackpot is the largest in history. The odds of winning the jackpot were 1 in 292.2 million. California also had 12 tickets match 5 of the 6 numbers, the lottery commission said. Matching five numbers, but not the Powerball number, can carry a $1 million prize, according to Powerball, but the California Lottery said the amounts won on those tickets was not immediately known late Wednesday. National Powerball sales Tuesday were more than $326 million and sales nationwide on Wednesday were expected to reach $600 million, Gary Grief, executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission and chief of the Powerball Game said earlier Wednesday. Wednesday’s huge jackpot surpassed the previous Powerball record of $590.5 million, which was won in Florida on May 18, 2013. This story originally appeared on NBCNews.comRecommended
Phil Helsel