In Florida, who is the $590 million lottery winner? Was it an employee ?
Someone who bought a Powerball ticket at a Publix supermarket in Florida is $590.5 million richer today - less $200 million or so in taxes (exact amount not yet known) .
So you didn't win $590 million, then?
The winner from Zephyrhills, a city of 13,000 near Tampa on Florida's West coast has, has not yet been named. In fact a Florida lottery executive did not say whether anyone had already stepped forward with that winning $2 ticket.
Publix spokeswoman Maria Brous said claimed there were a lot of rumours about who won, "but the store didn't know" . Which sort of suggests that the winner has come forward - but quietly. Another rumour: a Publix employee had not shown up for work Sunday, fuelling talk that he or she had won.
The ticket matched all six numbers drawn on Saturday night winning the huge jackpot, a record for Powerball, the Florida Lottery announced early yesterday.
The winning numbers were 10-13-14-22-52, Powerball: 11.
The prize drops to an estimated $40 million for Wednesday.
Tickets that match the first five numbers, but miss the Powerball, win $1 million each, and there were 33 of those. They were sold in: Arizona (2), California (2), Connecticut (1), Florida (2), Georgia (2), Kentucky (2), Louisiana (1), Missouri (2), New Hampshire (2), New Jersey (3), New York (6), Pennsylvania (2), Tennessee (1), Texas (1), Virginia (1), Washington (1) and Wisconsin (2).
Florida Lottery executive Cindy O’Connell told The Associated Press that more details would be released later.
“This would be the sixth Florida Powerball winner and right now, it’s the sole winner of the largest ever Powerball jackpot,” said O’Connell . “We’re delighted right now that we have the sole winner.”
She said Florida had had more Powerball winners than any other state.
With four out of every five possible combinations of Powerball numbers in play, someone was almost certain to win the game’s highest jackpot.
The chances of winning the prize were astronomically low: 1 in 175.2 million.