Powerball ticket worth $1.765 billion sold in Kern County
A ticket with all six numbers in Wednesday evening's Powerball drawing was sold at a liquor store in the unincorporated community of Frazier Park in Kern County and the purchaser has the option of receiving the $1.765 billion jackpot in 30 installments or a $774.1 million lump sum payment, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game.
Thursday afternoon officials announced during a press conference that the person or people who won still need to come forward.
"We won't know who the winner is, or group is, maybe it's a group of friends until they come forward," said California Lottery spokesperson Carolyn Becker. "Once they come forward they become a claimant and then we thoroughly vet them."
The jackpot was the second-largest lottery prize in U.S. history, behind the $2.040 billion jackpot for the Nov. 7, 2022, Powerball drawing.
The numbers drawn Wednesday were 22, 24, 40, 52, 64 and Powerball number was 10.
"Without the winning ticket, there is no prize money, so whoever has that $1.7 billion ticket should keep it extraordinarily safe," added Becker.
Related: Winning billion dollar Powerball ticket sold in SoCal — again
The drawing was the 34th since the last time a ticket with all six numbers was sold. The most recent previous jackpot winner in the Powerball game came in the July 19 drawing, when someone won $1.08 billion with a ticket sold at a downtown Los Angeles mini-market in what is now the eighth-largest jackpot in U.S. history.
There were nine tickets sold with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, including one each at a liquor store in Monterey Park and a mini-market in Santa Clara. They are each worth $760,111.
Powerball tickets with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, sold in other states are worth $1 million or $2 million, but California law requires major payoffs of lottery games to be paid on a pari-mutuel basis, meaning they are determined by sales and the number of winners.
The tickets with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, sold in Arizona and Pennsylvania are both worth $2 million because the players utilized the Power Play option, where for an additional $1 per play, a ticket with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, is worth $2 million.
Two tickets with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, were sold in Florida and one each in New York, Oklahoma and Virginia. They are each worth $1 million.
The odds of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number is 1 in 292.2 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game. The overall chance of winning a prize is 1 in 24.9.
The Powerball game is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.
The jackpot for Saturday's drawing will be $20 million.
