Nov. 8 (UPI) — Monday night’s historic $1.9 billion Powerball drawing was delayed after one state’s lottery experienced security and technical issues while processing a flood of ticket sales.
As of Tuesday morning, the winning numbers in the hotly-anticipated jackpot had not yet been revealed, while lottery officials issued a statement urging customers to keep their tickets and watch for an announcement later in the day on Powerball.com.
The highly-unusual interruption arose due to “a participating lottery needing extra time to complete the required security protocols,” said a statement from the Multi-State Lottery Association. “Powerball has strict security requirements that must be met by all 48 lotteries before a drawing can occur.”
The statement stopped short of naming the participating lottery that caused the delay.
The record-setting prize grew to become the largest-ever in U.S. lottery history last Saturday when no one hit all six numbers in the $1.5 billion drawing. This sent the jackpot soaring to $1.9 billion ahead of Monday’s drawing.
Droves of people have been lining up at stores nationwide for a chance to win, the odds of which stand at 1 in 292.2 million.
A lottery prize has eclipsed the $1 billion mark four other times in U.S. history, with the latest colossal jackpot standing to become the largest prize ever.
The previous record for a lottery prize was $1.586 billion claimed by three Powerball winners in 2016. One person in South Carolina picked the winning Mega Millions numbers in October 2018 and won $1.537 billion; in 2021, a Mega Millions ticket sold in Michigan hit for $1.05 billion. And this past July, the Mega Millions lottery jackpot surged to $1 billion after 29 straight draws without a winner.
The current Powerball game has gone more than three months without a first-prize winner, with Monday becoming the 41st consecutive drawing since someone last hit all six numbers on Aug. 3.
The next drawing will be Wednesday and the jackpot will continue to roll over to a larger amount until someone eventually wins.
Tickets cost $2 and the numbers are drawn at 10:59 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Lottery winners typically end up with a bigger share of the money by electing to take regular cash payouts over the course of 30 years, but would come out with far less if taking a lump sum payout all at once.
Electing a lump sum on Monday’s prize would pay about $929.1 million, or about half the money. Moreover, the IRS collects on the staggering sum up front.
