A Powerball ticket worth $340 million was sold in the Gold Rush town of Jacksonville, Oregon lottery officials said today morning.
Lottery officials said the winner or winners have not yet stepped forward to claim the largest jackpot in the game's history and the second-biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history. Jacksonville is near Medford in the southwest part of the state.
They said the tickets were sold at one of the two retailers in Jacksonville — Ray's Food Place and J'ville Tavern.
The store that sold the winning ticket will receive a $100,000 bonus for the sale.
The announcement capped a day of heavy sales in all 27 states where Powerball is played, plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Lottery spokesman Chuck Baumann cautioned it might take days for the winner to turn in the ticket: "We advise them to get their 15 minutes of fame out of the way at a press conference, but it's up to the winners to decide what to do."
Baumann said the longer the winner waits before calling is usually a good sign "because it means people have probably contacted financial advisers on how to handle the money."
Besides the winning $340 million ticket, there were four other tickets sold in Oregon that had the five winning numbers, minus the Powerball. Those are usually worth $200,000 each, but because the jackpot grew so large, lottery officials diverted some money into a bonus pool for those winners. They will receive an additional $650,000, for a total of $850,000.
One of those four tickets was also sold in Jacksonville. The three others were sold in Tualatin, Woodburn and Roseburg.
Also on Wednesday, the Oregon lottery announced the Megabucks $2.6 million jackpot winner. The winning ticket was bought in Portland.
If the winner of the $340 million jackpot chooses to take the money in a lump sum, he or she will receive $110 million after taxes. Oregon would receive roughly $13 million in taxes and the federal government would take $41 million.
The winner can choose instead to take 30 annual payments. By doing so, Baumann estimates they would average $7.6 million a year.
In the early morning drizzle, millionaire hopefuls in Oregon shared stories of lucky charms and near misses. "They're still on my fridge under my lucky magnet," said Roger Dowell, 35, a store manager at QFC, a grocery store in Portland, who said he purchased six tickets last night.
Thar's gold in them there tickets!
Six out six and five out of six in the same town! By the looks in the advertisements, every one probably knows every one else.
Could be the same person....playing their two favorite red Powerball numbers.
Could easily be a Californian who got lost in Medford looking for a store to buy tickets?
I hope someone in CA actually purchased the ticket in Jacksonville, OR. If so, then that person in CA is a multi-millionaire in another state. Do you think someone in Oregon won or someone travelling to Oregon won?
I am just happy that Oregon has won the record powerball jackpot and that the next jackpot winner from Oregon will not take 6 years or longer to come around.
Jacksonville is a town of 2,000. Upon further review it's over 30 miles from the California border, and a few miles out of the way from I-5. California hopefuls would be much more likely to stop in Ashland or Medford.
Two Match 5 tickets at the same store in a small town?! 99.99% chance they were bought by the same person...meaning this winner is NOT a QuickPicker! Someone with a system may have come through!
We'll know soon enough. They always talk about how they won. Went to get milk, needed a paper, was getting gas, etc. It would be nice to just once say, I studied the numbers and this is the result of two years of effort.
Jacksonville is a town of 2,000. Upon further review it's over 30 miles from the California border, and a few miles out of the way from I-5. California hopefuls would be much more likely to stop in Ashland or Medford.
Two Match 5 tickets at the same store in a small town?! 99.99% chance they were bought by the same person...meaning this winner is NOT a QuickPicker! Someone with a system may have come through!
Well, there are 43 members of Lottery Post who filled in their location as somewhere in Oregon, so who knows? Maybe one of those systems paid off! If they wrote the system themselves, maybe they'll make another million selling it.
I read a story in LP once about one guy who studied the numbers and won the 2nd prize in MM 5x or more in one drawing...or something like that. He basically had a strong feeling that these particular 5 numbers were going to hit based on previous draws. This was at a time when the 2nd prize was 100K.
The actual numbers that came out in last night's powerball drawing were not bad in my opinion. I mean I can easily see those numbers correlating with ages/b-days for someone's family. They seemed reasonable.
True, the numbers could be birthday/age numbers. But how many people would play two sets of the same number with a different Powerball?
True, the numbers could be birthday/age numbers. But how many people would play two sets of the same number with a different Powerball?
You never know what people will play....case in point: the numbers from the episode of "lost "
But then again, I seem to recall a certain set of numbers from a fortune cookie being very profitable for a ton of people.......
If it's your time, it's your time. Period.
Congrats to all the winners !!!
DD
i know there was a senator who matched the 5 white balls.