While nobody won the $98 million jackpot, somebody in California did win $3.2 million.
A lottery player in California has won a millionaire-making prize in a recent Powerball drawing. According to the California State Lottery, one ticket purchased in the state matched all five white ball numbers drawn but not the red Powerball number in the Monday, May 8, 2023 drawing.
This makes the ticket a second-place winner, which is worth $3,202,599 to the lucky ticket owner.
Where was the $3.2 million ticket sold?
The lucky Powerball player bought their ticket at a 7-Eleven convenience store in California. You can see the exact location on the map below.
Winning numbers for the Powerball drawing
If you’re a Powerball player, you’ll want to check your tickets to see if you have a winner. To check your tickets, you can use the California Lottery app, go directly to the Powerball draw results site, or watch the below video of the May 8 drawing:
What a difference one number makes
Whoever bought this ticket was just one number away from winning the jackpot prize. Had they matched the red Powerball number along with the five white ball numbers, the ticket holder would have won the estimated $98 million jackpot. The cash value of the prize would have been an estimated $52.4 million.
Because nobody won the grand prize for the May 8 drawing, the jackpot will roll over to the next drawing and will be worth an estimated $109 million. The jackpot has been rolling over since April 19, 2023. The odds of winning the grand prize are 1 in 292,201,338.
California awards Powerball prizes on a pari-mutuel basis
You may have noticed that the official Powerball website lists the California winner in the May 8 drawing as winning $1 million. If you go to the California Lottery website, however, you’ll see that the winning amount for the drawing is listed as $3.2 million.
What’s the reason for this discrepancy between the two lottery websites?
Well, if you read the fine print on the Powerball prize chart site, you’ll see that California has elected to calculate their prize amounts differently compared to other states.
California relies on the pari-mutuel method to determine payout amounts. The amount of sales and number of winners play a critical role in the calculation.
While all other states follow the fixed amounts for prizes listed in the Powerball prize chart, California’s pari-mutuel formula means that prize amounts will fluctuate. The prize amounts for each category vary depending on the percentage the category receives from the overall prize pool. The winners in each category receive a split of the money available for that category.
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