SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A ticket with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, for Wednesday evening's drawing of the multi-state Powerball lottery was sold at a gasoline station in San Diego and is worth $2,768,497, the California Lottery announced.
Another ticket with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, was sold at a market in San Jose and is also worth $2,768,497.
The San Diego winning ticket was sold at the Chevron station on 6949 Linda Vista Rd., lottery officials said.
"It was early in the morning and somebody came with some cameras and we asked why they were recording and they told us somebody had won five out of six on the Powerball and we were like, 'Really? That's crazy!" Assistant Manager Yaritza Juarez said.
Other tickets with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number were sold in Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, New York, Texas and Virginia. They are all worth $1 million, except the one sold in Virginia, which is worth $2 million because the player utilized the Power Play option, where for an additional $1 per play, a ticket with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, is worth $2 million.
California law requires major payoffs of lottery games to be paid on a pari-mutuel basis.
The California winners have six months to claim their prize.
Juarez said this is a sign good things are coming, "It's exciting because you never really see that happen... Good luck in the new year, 2021 here we come!!"
There were no tickets sold with all six numbers and the estimated jackpot for Saturday's drawing is expected to grow to $640 million.
Juarez said many are rushing to the lucky gas station to buy tickets for the next drawing, "right now it's about $1,000 and it used to be like $200 a day."
The numbers drawn Wednesday were 4, 19, 23, 25, 49 and the Powerball number was 14. The jackpot was $550 million.
The drawing was the 34th since a ticket with all six numbers was sold.
The odds of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number is 1 in about 293 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game. The overall chance of winning a prize is 1 in 24.87.
The Powerball game is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.
