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Single ticket is winner in record $2.04 bn Powerball lottery

New York, Nov 8 (EFE).- A single ticket is the winning combination in the nationwide Powerball lottery in the US on Tuesday, a purchaser in California selecting the numbers that will give him or her the largest lottery win in history – $2.04 billion – according to authorities.

The Powerball lottery, which can be played in 45 US states and territories, had climbed to never-before-seen levels over the past two drawings because nobody was lucky enough to purchase a ticket with the winning combination of five numbers plus the Powerball number that would have secured them the jackpot.

The California Lottery administration announced on its Twitter account that the ticket with the six lucky numbers was sold in a store in Altadena and that this is the first time that a single person has ever won more than $1 billion in gambling in that state.

The size of the prize was noteworthy because the lottery drawing should have been conducted on Monday night but due to a technical problem in one US state it had to be postponed until Tuesday morning, during which time the jackpot – which is based on ticket sales – edged over the $2 billion mark.

Despite the spectacular gross cash haul for the lucky winner, they will receive “only” an estimated $998 million – according to Powerball officials – if they decide to take their winnings in a lump sum, but if they opt to split their payout into 29 yearly amounts they will receive the full jackpot.

The last time someone selected all six Powerball lottery numbers was on August 3, 2022, when a lucky person bought a ticket in Pennsylvania that won them $206.9 million, but the highest previous jackpot was won in 2016, when three winners in California, Florida and Tennessee, all of whom had purchased tickets with the same winning combination, shared $1.586 billion.

EFE nqs/fjo/ag/bp

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