A winner was chosen in Powerball's historic $1.3 billion drawing, after 41 consecutive drawings without a top-prize winner — plus an unexpected delay that put off the hotly anticipated drawing until the wee hours of Sunday morning.
A single ticket sold in Oregon matched the winning numbers of 22, 27, 44, 52, 69 and the red Powerball 9.
That makes the lucky ticket good for either an estimated $1.326 billion spread over one initial payout plus 29 subsequent annual installments, or a one-time lump sum of about $608.9 million.
As a result, the next Powerball drawing on Monday's solar eclipse day, will be knocked back to a relatively down-to-Earth $20 million. The $1.3 billion prize marks the eighth largest in U.S. lottery history.
It also comes after a record-tying 41 straight drawings without a jackpot winner, which allowed the prize to grow to its massive size. Equally long winless streaks came in both 2021 and 2022.
The drawing was initially set for 10:59 p.m. Saturday in Florida, but delayed until just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday, to give one organizer more time to complete certain procedures required before the drawing, Powerball said in a statement.
"Powerball game rules require that every single ticket sold nationwide be checked and verified against two different computer systems before the winning numbers are drawn," the statement said. "This is done to ensure that every ticket sold for the Powerball drawing has been accounted for and has an equal chance to win. Tonight, we have one jurisdiction that needs extra time to complete that pre-draw process."
That jurisdiction was not specified. Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The odds of winning Powerball's jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338.
