A player from California has won US$2.04 billion in the lottery, the official Powerball website announced on Tuesday, a world record after months without a clear winner.
A single winning Powerball ticket, bearing the numbers 10, 33, 41, 47, 56 and 10, has been picked up across the United States, according to the official website. “The California Lottery produces the FIRST billionaire in its history! » wrote on Twitter the California Lottery on Tuesdaywhich states that the “lucky ticket was sold at Joe’s Service Center, in Altadena”.
The lucky winner will have to choose between receiving the entire sum in payments spread over three decades, or being paid in one go, up to US$997.6 million, according to an estimate by Powerball.
By Monday-Tuesday night, 40 consecutive draws had produced no big winners, pushing the jackpot to a staggering sum of over $2 billion.
This jackpot had sparked gambling fever across the United States. The draw originally scheduled for Monday evening had to be delayed by a few hours because lottery officials from one of the participating states requested more time to process its data, according to a tweet posted Tuesday by the California Lottery.
The odds of hitting the jackpot, by buying a two-dollar ticket, were only one in 292.2 million. For comparison, the probability of being struck by lightning is one in a million, according to US health authorities.