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W. Virginia Sells $315M Powerball Ticket

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By GAVIN McCORMICK, Associated Press Writer

HURRICANE, W.Va. - Christmas is over for the rest of us, but for the winner of the $314.9 million Powerball jackpot it just may go on forever.

Only one winning ticket was sold in the Christmas night drawing, making it the largest sum ever won with a single ticket in U.S. history. The ticket was purchased at the C&L Super Serve in Hurricane, 25 miles west of Charleston, said Multi-State Lottery Association spokesman Joe Mahoney.


A man who identified himself as an attorney representing the winner contacted the West Virginia Lottery Commission Thursday morning, said Lottery Director John Musgrave.


"He said he would contact the lottery at a later date," said Musgrave, who made the announcement from the store.


The man did not identify himself nor the winner, Musgrave said. He identified the winner as a resident of Putnam County, a bedroom county sandwiched between Charleston and Huntington.


Bulla declined to identify the attorney or the potential winner.


"We don't consider it a winning ticket until validated and claimed," Bulla said.


Lottery officials planned a news conference later Thursday.


An unexpected Christmas Day run on Powerball tickets pushed the already whopping $280 million jackpot to $314.9 million just before numbers were drawn, making it the multistate lottery's largest prize ever.


The numbers in Wednesday night's drawing were 5-14-16-29-53 and the Powerball was 7.


The winning ticket was purchased Monday, said Nancy Bulla with the West Virginia Lottery Commission. The winner has an option of taking a cash payout of $170 million before taxes or collecting the entire jackpot in 30 payments over 29 years.


Because of the jackpot's size, Bulla said the state didn't have enough cash on hand to award the full amount on either option. Several million dollars could be paid now, with another payment made in early January "once funds are transferred from the Multi-State Lottery Association," she said.


The winner has 180 days to claim the prize, the third-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, Bulla said.


"We're asking the winner not to talk much about it until they come into our office," Bulla said. Lottery officials want the winner to call first so arrangements can be made.


Super Serve clerk Aaron Gillispie said the 24-hour grocery store and gas station was in a frenzy Thursday.


"It's a mad house," he said in an Associated Press Radio interview. "Every camera crew, every news crew, every person that has anything to do with anything wants to talk to us."


He said workers were excited at the possibility that someone from town of 5,200 residents had won.




"We have a lot of people come in regularly and say, 'If we win, we'll remember you' and that type of thing," he said. "So, everybody's wondering who sold it, and it's been pretty wild."

Store owner Larry Trogdon told NBC's "Today" that police called his house at 3 a.m. with the news.

"It was scary," he said. "Then they told me we sold the lottery ticket for $314 million. That made me relieved. Then I had to travel 90 miles to get here."

By selling the ticket, Trogdon gets $100,000.

"I have a daughter getting married this summer," he told NBC, smiling.

Mahoney said the jackpot grew after holiday sales were much higher than expected.

"We were always planning on Wednesday, Christmas Day, to be a very light day for sales," Mahoney said. "Monday and Tuesday were much higher than we expected them to be and (Christmas) ... was much higher than we anticipated it to be."

But since gas stations and convenience stores — typical lottery retailers — were open Christmas Day, throngs of people ventured out to get a piece of the action.

Powerball, the nation's largest lottery game, is sold in 23 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Christmas Day prize was the largest Powerball jackpot ever. The game's second-largest jackpot was $295.7 million in July 1998. Last summer, it reached $295 million.

The biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history was a Big Game prize of $363 million, won in May 2000 by ticketholders in Michigan and Illinois. The second was a $331 million Big Game jackpot split between three tickets in April.

Spain's annual Christmas lottery known as El Gordo — The Fat One — is billed as the world's richest. This year's $1.7 billion jackpot spreads wealth among millions of people. About 10,000 numbers win some kind of prize, from $20 to $200,000.

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On the Net: Multi-State Lottery Association: http://www.powerball.com/powerball.shtm