A single ticket has won the world record $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot.
The prize was scooped by a ticket bought in California, the ticket was sold at a Joe’s Service Center, the California Lottery said on Twitter. Results posted to Powerball.com similarly said there was one winner who matched all six numbers in California — the odds of which were 1 in 292.2 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association.- after more than three months of nobody winning the top prize.
News of the win came after Monday night’s draw was delayed and then a Powerball Twitter account wrongly announced that nobody had won.
The numbers for the drawing held in Tallahassee, Florida, were: white balls 10, 33, 41, 47 and 56, and the red Powerball was 10.
The drama of the delayed draw, followed by the false claim that nobody had secured the jackpot, sent social media into overdrive – with an avalanche of Powerball memes shared online.
The claim that nobody had won the prize was published on an unofficial Powerball website and Twitter account. That was then widely circulated by a respected news wire and covered by several news outlets.
It’s not yet clear how many tickets were sold for the latest draw – but an estimated 280 million were sold for Saturday night’s draw, when the jackpot was $1.6billion.
By comparison, around 159 million people voted in the 2020 presidential election – about 63 percent of voting-age US residents.
That means millions more tickets were likely to be sold for Tuesday’s Powerball draw than votes cast in the midterms.
Monday night’s draw for the bumper prize was delayed after an unnamed state said it needed more time to process sales.
Officials carried out the draw on Tuesday morning and also said new calculations revealed the jackpot was around $100million more than the initial estimate of $1.9 billion.
The draw on Tuesday was initially scheduled for Monday night, with millions of Americans eagerly awaiting the results.
But the deadline came and went without an announcement thanks to one of the 48 participating lotteries not submitting all of its ticket sales and play data to the Multi State Lottery Association.
There was initial confusion over whether the delay was caused by a glitch or a technical problem, with the California Lottery announcing on Twitter it was down to ‘security protocols’ not being followed.
The Multi State Lottery Association later clarified that it was down to one state simply not getting through its sales quickly enough to submit them for the result.
The association said it was against its policy to say which lottery had the delay.
‘Due to the length of the draw delay, it is likely that we will not know the official results of the Powerball drawing until Tuesday morning,’ the Association said on Monday night in a statement.
There was initial confusion caused by the California Lottery blaming the problem on a state not completing ‘security protocols’.
‘When the required security protocols are complete, the drawing will be performed under the supervision of lottery security officials and independent auditors,’ the tweet from the California Lottery continued.
‘Winning numbers will be posted as soon as they are available. Thank you for your patience.’