Massachusetts Ticket Snags $759 Million Powerball Jackpot; Smaller Jackpots Won In Pa., NJ
By Rob McLean, Jackie Wattles and Keith Allen
PHILADELPHIA (CNN/CBS) -- Powerball just made one person insanely rich, but Pennsylvania and New Jersey players did not come away empty-handed in Wednesday night's drawing for the game's second-largest jackpot on record.
A winning ticket for the $758.7 million grand prize was sold in Chicopee, Massachusetts, a lottery spokesman said. It's the largest jackpot with a single winner in North American history.
The winning numbers were 6, 7, 16, 23, 26 and the Powerball was 4.
It wasn't immediately clear who bought the lucky ticket. And whoever it is won't get their hands on the full jackpot -- lottery winnings are taxed like income.
You should still check your tickets in case you won a smaller prize. Powerball says there's a $2 million winner and four $1 million winners in Pennsylvania and two $1 million winners in New Jersey.
The New Jersey winning tickets were purchased at the following locations:
- Cumberland County: L and K Petroleum, 3890 Route 47, Dorchester, and
- Passaic County: W & R Mini Market and Deli, 94 Nagle St., Paterson.
The four $1 million winning tickets from Pennsylvania were sold by the following retailers:
- Marathon, 100 E. 7th Ave., Tarentum, Allegheny County;
- 7-Eleven, 1483 W. Street Road, Warminster, Bucks County;
- Darrenkamp's Market, 945 E. Main St., Mount Joy, Lancaster County; and
- Weis Markets, 365 S. Cedar Crest Blvd., Allentown, Lehigh County.
The one $2 million ticket was sold by Fresh & Quick, 245 Main St., Catawissa, Columbia County.
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The IRS taxes the top income bracket 39.6%. And the government will withhold 25% of that before the money ever gets to the winner. The rest has to be paid at tax time.
Chances of picking all six winning numbers currently stand at about one in 292 million.
That means you are actually more likely to be killed by an asteroid (1 in 700,000), be struck by lightning while drowning (1 in 183 million) or give birth to quadruplets (1 in 729,000).
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And there's been two other Powerball jackpots that have passed the $400 million mark so far in 2017. A $448 million prize was claimed in June, and a $435 million jackpot was won in February.
The only prize that's ever topped the $1 billion mark was claimed in 2016.
It was a $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot that grew for months before. Then, three winning tickets -- one each sold in Tennessee, California and Florida -- all lined up for the numbers drawn on Jan. 13, 2016.
The odds have always been long for landing a Powerball jackpot. But it became even more difficult recently -- thanks to a rule change in October 2015 that tweaked the odds.
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