New details revealed about big Powerball jackpot's winners
LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. -- Eight people will claim their share of last weekend's $429.6 million Powerball jackpot, which was won with a $6 investment, the New Jersey Lottery said Friday.
The trip to claiming the jackpot began last week at a 7-Eleven in Trenton when someone bought two $2 tickets, one each for drawings held last Wednesday and Saturday, and spent an extra $1 on each ticket to get the "Power Play" option that multiplies the winnings.
The purchaser chose the lower lump sum option over the higher-valued annuity, making Saturday's sole winning ticket worth $284 million before taxes. The eight winners who shared in the ticket will claim the prize Friday afternoon.
"They spent $6 to win $284 million. That's a pretty good investment," Carole Hedinger, the New Jersey Lottery's executive director, said earlier this week.
Most of the convenience store's customers are locals who come in a few times a week to buy coffee or a soda and maybe a sandwich or snack. That led area residents to speculate that the person who holds the winning ticket may be living among them.
The ticket is the largest single jackpot winning ticket sold in New Jersey and the sixth-largest in Powerball history.
The winning numbers were 5-25-26-44-66, and the Powerball number was 9.
Powerball is played in 44 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The odds of winning are one in 292.2 million.