Lottery
Christmas came a day early for someone in SoCal holding a Powerball ticket worth almost $3 million! The ticketholder missed getting a piece of the historic Christmas Eve $1.817 billion jackpot by one number, the Powerball. A single ticket purchased at a gas station in Arkansas beat the odds and scored the jackpot. It took 47 draws before someone hit the Powerball jackpot—the longest roll ever for that game.
The SoCal winner purchased the lucky ticket with five of the hot numbers in San Bernardino County at the 7-Eleven 4092 Chino Hills Parkway in Chino Hills. That ticket is worth $2,811,275, according to the California Lottery. Here are the six winning digits: 4, 25, 31, 52, 59, and the Powerball 19. Wednesday’s jackpot is second only to the $2.04 billion jackpot won in 2022 by a single ticket sold in Altadena, California. That prize was the largest in both Powerball and U.S. lottery history.
The Christmas Eve jackpot reportedly has a cash option of $834.9 million. Or the winner can take the $1.817 billion annuity option, receiving one immediate payment followed by 29 yearly payments. Both prize amounts are before taxes.
The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, according to game officials. Each ticket costs $2. The draws are on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. The next one is December 27, with a jackpot of $20 million.
