Powerball Lottery: Two Tickets Share \$580m.
Two people had winning tickets in the \$579m Powerball
jackpot which was announced late on Wednesday, according to the
lottery's website.
Another 8.9 million players won lesser prizes in the draw. The jackpot was the second largest in US history, with the odds of winning estimated at one in 175 million.
The draw on Wednesday night followed 16 consecutive draws that produced no top winner, boosting the Powerball to the second-largest potential lottery payout in US history.
Tickets had been selling at an average of 130,000 every minute across the United States in the hours before the draw. That equates to players spending \$15.6 million an hour for a chance at the huge jackpot.
An estimated 90 percent of the tickets sold were 'quick picks' where players let computers pick their numbers for them.
There had been no Powerball winner since October 6 when the jackpot stood at \$425m. However, it was revised on Tuesday to \$500m after the boost in sales increased the jackpot.
On Wednesday morning it was increased again to \$550m and revised once more to \$579.9m (£361m) just before the draw.
"Sales have been so fast and so strong it's difficult to keep up with the estimates," said Mary Neubauer, spokeswoman for the Iowa Lottery, one of the founding Powerball states.
Powerball's website crashed shortly after the winning numbers 5, 23, 16, 22, 29, with Powerball 6 were announced, as did that of the Multi-State Lottery Association, which oversees Powerball.
Besides the jackpot, Powerball players can win as much as \$1m if they hold tickets with most but not all of the drawn numbers, but many people are unaware of such secondary prizes, which end up going unclaimed.
The biggest jackpot in US lottery history of \$640m was claimed in March 2012 by MegaMillions players in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland who all held tickets bearing the same winning numbers.
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