At least one California resident is a whole lot richer after hitting the biggest lottery jackpot in history last night.
The holder of a winning Powerball ticket sold at the 7-Eleven in Chino Hills will share a $1.586 billion jackpot with winners in Florida and Tennessee, lottery officials announced late Wednesday.
The owner of that ticket from Chino Hills remains unidentified, but lottery officials have scheduled a press conference later this morning at the location where the ticket was sold.
A large and jubilant crowd began packing the Chino Hills 7-Eleven at 4092 Chino Hills Parkway shortly after the news broke, spilling into the parking lot and whooping it up late into the night for TV news cameras. Many chanted “Chino Hills! Chino Hills!”
The 7-Eleven will receive $1 million for selling the winning ticket.
Each third of the jackpot is worth $528.8 million if taken over 30 years, or $327.8 million if taken as a one-time payment. That’s before federal and state taxes, however, which combined can exceed 40 percent of the total.
Officials also said 12 tickets were sold in California that matched five of the six winning numbers Wednesday but not the Powerball number. Those tickets are worth $638,146 each. They were sold in Chula Vista, Cloverdale, Gardena, Irwindale, Nipton, Pacoima, Redlands, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Santa Rosa, Tustin and Vacaville.
The Powerball game is played in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands, but California leads the country in Powerball ticket sales.
The winning numbers drawn last night were 4, 8, 19, 27, 34 and the Powerball number was 10.
