Two Powerball tickets win $632 million jackpot

The jackpot will be shared between the two winners, meaning they each take home $316.3 million before taxes.

Two lucky Powerball ticket holders will split Wednesday’s $632 million jackpot, lottery officials have announced.

As was first reported by CBS, one winning ticket was purchased at a 7-Eleven in Sacramento, California, while the other was brought in Wisconsin. However, it isn't yet known whether each ticket was brought by one person or a group of people.

Wednesday’s staggering jackpot prize is the seventh-largest in Powerball history and will see the winners each take home $316.3 million (before taxes).

There are a number of different ways jackpot winners can receive their prize money. Players who strike it lucky have the option to take either a lump-sum payment of money or receive 30 annual payments over the following 29 years. Those who choose annual payments will receive a 5 per cent payment increase each year. 

The numbers drawn on Wednesday night were: 6, 14, 25, 33 and 4 – while the Powerball number was 17. The drawing’s Power Play multiplier was 2.

Lottery officials originally estimated the jackpot would be $610 million, but on the day of the draw it was announced that it had jumped to $632.6 million due to the “fast-growing sales across the country”.

The jackpot size was initially helped by the fact that nobody had won it since October, when one player took home almost $700m. Following Wednesday's draw, the next Powerball jackpot – on Saturday night – will start at $20m.

Overall, more than 3 million tickets won a prize of some kind earlier this week. Prizes ranged from $4 to $2 million, with five different people each winning $1 million.

The odds of winning any prize at all are 1 in 24.9, but that extends to 1 in 292.2 million when it comes to winning the jackpot. Tickets are sold in 45 US states, as well as Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.