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Powerball Numbers: One Lucky Winner Out Of New Jersey Wins $429 Million Jackpot

By Pam Wright
Published on: 05:36 PST, May 8, 2016

The Powerball jackpot drawing Saturday night made one lucky person an immediate multi-mulit-multi-millionaire.

According to USA Today, only one winning Powerball ticket matched the numbers drawn at 11 p.m. EDT on Saturday night for the multi-state Powerball jackpot.

After 17 weeks without a winner, Powerball officials say the payout is estimated to be $429.6 million, the ninth-highest U.S. lottery prize in history.

The New Jersey Lottery commission couldn’t wait to announce that a lucky person — or persons — picked the winning Powerball numbers.

“The New Jersey Lottery is thrilled to announce that the sole winning ticket (Saturday night’s) Powerball drawing was purchased in the Garden State.”

According to Carole Hedinger, the New Jersey Lottery executive director, the winning Powerball ticket was sold in Mercer County, which includes the state capital of Trenton. She did not disclose the retail location that sold the winning ticket.

The winning numbers were 25, 66, 44, 5, and 26 with the Powerball 9. Lottery officials said one ticket, purchased in New Jersey, had the winning combination, according to media reports.

The winner was not identified and Hedinger reminded folks that winners of huge lottery payouts sometimes do not come forward publicly for months. Many of them want to secure themselves before divulging that they have the winning tickets as a caution against thieves, crazy relatives coming out of the woodwork and the like.

“Winning the Powerball jackpot is a life-changing event. Congratulations to the ticket holder and to the retailer who sold it.”

She added that the agency will be “anxiously awaiting the phone call” from the winner.

Saturday’s jackpot was the largest for any U.S. lottery since January, when three Powerball tickets split a record $1.6 billion.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, three winning tickets were drawn for that big cash out. The winners purchased their tickets in Tennessee, Florida, and California.

While all of us dream of one day winning the lottery, the odds of choosing the correct Powerball numbers are one in 292 million.

According to statistics experts, each of us is roughly 25 times more likely to become the next president of the United States than to win the game.

Kelly Cripe, a Texas-based lottery spokeswoman, said a sudden surge in late ticket-buying on Saturday increased the jackpot by some $15 million to an estimated $429.6 million.

Saturday’s Lottery winner will receive $284.1 million if they choose a one-time cash payout. And then they will have to pay taxes. Still, that’s a hefty sum of money.

In addition to the big winner — or winners if it was a group purchased Powerball ticket — four winners in New York, Illinois, California, and Virginia chose five correct Powerball numbers and won $1 million each.

Powerball is played in 44 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Mega Millions jackpot has also been increasing over the past two months, but it has not yet reached the same payout level as the current Powerball purse. The last time someone hit the winning Mega Millions numbers was on March 8.

On Friday, someone in California won $822,000 by correctly matching five numbers on the Mega Millions Lottery ticket. Those numbers were 32, 26, 14, 27, and 36. The ticket didn’t match the Mega number of 7.

According to KCRA3, the winning Mega Millions ticket was sold at the Six Star Food Mart on 1501 East Yosemite Ave.

[Photo by William Thomas Cain/Getty Images]

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