Winning Tickets for Powerball Jackpot Sold in Arizona, Missouri - East Idaho News
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Winning Tickets for Powerball Jackpot Sold in Arizona, Missouri

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Getty N 110311 PowerballLotto?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1354180835113William Thomas Cain/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Winning tickets for the record Powerball jackpot worth more than $587 million were purchased in Arizona and Missouri.

Missouri Lottery official Susan Goedde confirmed to ABC News Thursday morning that one of the winning tickets was purchased in the state, but they would not be announcing a town until later Thursday morning. 

Powerball’s website reports the other winning ticket was purchased in Arizona.

Arizona lottery officials said they had no information on that state’s winner or winners but would announce where it was sold during a news conference later in the day.

The winning numbers for the jackpot were 5, 23, 16, 22 and 29.  The Powerball was 6. 

Before the numbers were drawn on Wednesday, the jackpot swelled to $587.5 million, according to lottery official Sue Dooley.  The two winners will split the jackpot each getting $293.75 million.  The cash payout is $192.5 million each.

An additional 8,924,123 players won smaller prizes, according to Powerball’s website.

“There were 58 winners of $1 million and there were eight winners of $2 million.  So a total of $74 million,” said Chuck Strutt, Director of the Multi-State Lottery Association.

Hopeful players bought tickets at the rate of 131,000 every minute up until an hour before the deadline of 11 p.m. ET, according to lottery officials.

The jackpot had already rolled over 16 consecutive times without a winner.  That fact, plus the doubling in price of a Powerball ticket, accounted for the unprecedented richness of the pot.

“Back in January, we moved Powerball from being a $1 game to $2,” said Mary Neubauer, a spokeswoman at the game’s headquarters in Iowa.  “We thought at the time that this would mean bigger and faster-growing jackpots.”

That proved true.  The total, she said, began taking “huge jumps — another $100 million since Saturday.”  It then jumped another $50 million.

The biggest Powerball pot on record until now — $365 million — was won in 2006 by eight Lincoln, Neb., co-workers.

Lottery officials put the odds of winning the $587.5 million Powerball pot at one in 175 million, meaning you’d have been 25 times more likely to win an Academy Award.

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