LOS ANGELES (AP) — An eye-popping and unprecedented Powerball jackpot whose rise to $1.6 billion became a national fascination will be split three ways.
The winners' identities remain a mystery, but they bought their tickets in Florida, Tennessee and a Los Angeles suburb where even lottery losers were celebrating Thursday that such heady riches were won in their modest city.
Florida lottery officials say the winning Powerball ticket for the Sunshine State was sold at a Publix on A1A in Melbourne Beach. Eleven other Florida tickets won $1 million.
No details were immediately available about the Florida winner.
In addition the Florida Lottery says The $2 million Powerball winning ticket from last night’s drawing was purchased at Sav-A-Thon, located at 199 North Country Club Road in Lake Mary.
Frederick Walker, 19, of Sanford, claimed the $2 million prize.
“When I heard about the billion dollar Powerball jackpot, I decided to try my luck and buy a ticket,” Walker said in a news relase from the Florida Lottery. “How lucky that the first time I played, I won!”
The $1 million Powerlball winning tickets from last night’s drawing were purchased at:
1. Pine Island Chevron, located at 4450 South Pine Island Road in Davie.
2. Big Boss Stores, located at 671 Highway 98 East in Destin.
3. 7-Eleven, located at 4490 Weston Road in Davie.
4. Winn Dixie, located at 2778 North Roosevelt Boulevard in Key West.
5. Publix, located at 7780 113th Street in Seminole.
6. FCE, located at 7006 Palmetto Circle North in Boca Raton.
7. Indo Pak Curry Spices, located at 18901 Southwest 106th Avenue in Cutler Bay.
8. Tahir Enterprise, located at 840 Northwest 183rd Street in Miami.
9. Publix, located at 133 North Congress Avenue in Boynton Beach.
10. Zephyrhills Radiant Food Store, located at 6512 Gall Boulevard in Zephyrhills.
11. Orion Gas, located at 10301 Northwest 7th Avenue in Miami.
The three big winners overcame odds of 1 in 292.2 million to land on the winning numbers, 4-8-19-27-34 and Powerball 10. More winners could still be revealed early Thursday.
Florida's jackpot winning #POWERBALL ticket was purchased at Publix on Highway A1A in Melbourne Beach! Still no word on who the winner is...
— Florida Lottery (@floridalottery) January 14, 2016
World record $1.5B #POWERBALL draw produced a Florida jackpot winner! Plus, we had 11 $1M winners & a $2M winner. 13 new FL millionaires!
— Florida Lottery (@floridalottery) January 14, 2016
Lottery officials in Tennessee say the winning ticket for the record Powerball jackpot in their state was sold in Munford, north of Memphis.
No details were immediately available about the Florida winner.
None of the winners' identities has been revealed, but the California ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven in Chino Hills, California lottery spokesman Alex Traverso told The Associated Press.
The store and its surrounding strip mall immediately became a wildly popular gathering spot in the usually quiet Los Angeles suburb of 75,000 people. TV footage showed hundreds of people, from news crews to gawkers, crowded the store and spilled into its parking lot.
They cheered and mugged for TV cameras as if it were New Year's Eve or a sporting event. Many chanted, "Chino Hills! Chino Hills!" in celebration of the city. Some took selfies with the store clerk on duty.
"It's history. We're all so excited for our city," Rita Talwar, 52, who has lived in Chino Hills for 30 years, told the local newspaper, the San Bernardino Sun.
Some took selfies with the store clerk on duty, who became an instant celebrity and may well have been the man who sold the ticket after being on duty for much of the run-up to Wednesday night's drawing.
"I'm very proud that the ticket was sold here," the clerk, M. Faroqui, told the Sun. "I'm very happy. This is very exciting."
The 7-Eleven will get a $1 million bonus for selling the winning ticket, Traverso said.
The estimated jackpot amounts had risen steadily since Nov. 4, when it was reset at $40 million. Texas Lottery executive director Gary Grief has said this Powerball offered "absolutely" the world's biggest jackpot.
Not that there aren't large jackpots elsewhere. Spain's massively popular Christmas lottery, known as "El Gordo," is ranked as the world's richest, though it doles out a single jackpot among millions of prizes, instead of one large jackpot like the Powerball. El Gordo last month showered 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) across the country.
Powerball tickets are sold in 44 states, as well as the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
But residents in the six states that don't participate found ways to get their hands on tickets. Some of the biggest Powerball sales have come from cities bordering states that don't sell the tickets, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. The association oversees the Powerball Lottery, but management rotates annually among member states.
