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The winning numbers selected were 17, 19, 21, 37, 44, with
the Powerball 16. No one as yet had stepped forward to claim the
prize, which grew in size since Sept. 17, the last time anyone
matched all six numbers.
The jackpot soared from $403 million to a reported $420.9
million on Saturday due to a spate of late ticket-buying.
The prize is paid out over 30 years, with the option of a lump
sum payment, which officials said would add up to about $254.7
million.
The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million.
The largest ever U.S. lottery prize of $1.6 billion was split
between three winning tickets in January.
Powerball, one of several games run by the Multi-State Lottery
Association, a non-profit owned and operated by member states'
lotteries, is played in 44 states, the District of Columbia,
Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Players can either buy
$2 tickets using their own numbers or have them randomly
generated by a computer.
The Mega Millions lottery, also offered by the association,
produced the country's second-largest-ever prize, worth $656
million, in a 2012 drawing.
For every $1 worth of Powerball sales, half goes to prizes, 40
percent to state governments for causes such as education, and
10 percent to retailers who sell the tickets and other
administrative costs.
(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and
Jacqueline Wong)
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