Lucky player in Seattle suburb wins $754.6M Powerball prize
AUBURN, Wash. (AP) — A single winning ticket for a $754.6 million Powerball jackpot was sold at a department store in a Seattle suburb, Washington state lottery officials said Tuesday.
The winning numbers drawn Monday night were 5, 11, 22, 23, 69 and the Powerball 7.
The winning ticket was bought Sunday at a Fred Meyer store in Auburn, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Seattle, lottery officials said. The store will receive a $50,000 bonus.
The winner has not yet come forward.
It’s the second time a Powerball jackpot ticket was sold in Washington state, and both tickets were purchased in Auburn. The first was a $90 million jackpot in 2014.
Lottery officials said another $1 million prize from a ticket bought in Airway Heights, near Spokane, in November remains unclaimed. Lottery winners have 180 days to claim their prizes.
Powerball officials said in a statement early Tuesday that a single ticket matched all six numbers and that ticket sales pushed the jackpot higher than an earlier $747 million estimate.
The full jackpot is for a winner opting for an annuity distributed in one immediate but partial payout followed by additional payments over 29 years that increase by 5% annually. The winner also can opt for a one-time cash payment of $407.2 million.
Both prizes available are the amounts before taxes, Powerball said.
The estimated jackpot for the next drawing scheduled for Wednesday is $20 million, according to the lottery’s website.
Monday night’s win was the first Powerball jackpot win since Nov. 19. That winless streak allowed the prize to grow larger and larger until it became the ninth-largest in U.S. history.
Higher interest rates have allowed annuity payments to increase compared with earlier jackpots, when rates were lower. Most winners prefer the immediate cash prize.
The game’s abysmal odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to build big prizes that draw more players. That strategy certainly has worked recently: Someone in Maine won a $1.35 billion Mega Millions prize in January and a California player hit a record $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot last November. No one has claimed either of those prizes.
Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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The story was updated to correct that the next Powerball drawing is scheduled for Wednesday, not Thursday.
