ATLANTA — Nearly two weeks ago, the lives of two Georgians were changed forever.
That's when the winning Powerball ticket worth more than $478 million was sold on Oct. 24 at a gas station in Buford -- marking the largest jackpot winning in Georgia's lottery history.
The Georgia Lottery announced on Tuesday that two winners will split the grand prize. They selected the cash option and will split the total amount of $230,566,360 before taxes. The final jackpot was $478,194,000.
Both winners opted to remain anonymous, which is permitted under Georgia law.
The winning Quik Pik ticket was bought at the Quick Mart gas station located at 2155 Buford Dam Road in Buford. The winning numbers were 2-15-27-29-39 with a Powerball of 20. The Power Play multiplier was 2X.
The Quick Mart gas station will now also get a $50,000 retailer incentive bonus payment for selling the winning ticket, a spokesperson with the Georgia Lottery announced.
“This is an incredible moment in Georgia Lottery history, and we are thrilled to congratulate Georgia’s newest and largest Powerball winners,” Georgia Lottery President and CEO Gretchen Corbin said in a statement. “This is a life-changing win, and we are so excited to celebrate with our lucky winners.”
The only time a winning amount was anywhere close to this number was in 2013 when a Mega Millions winner split a $648 million prize with a California winner. That person took home $173 million before taxes.
Georgia Lottery officials also noted that, to the best of their knowledge, there have been no previous Power Ball jackpot winners in the state since it started in Georgia back in 2010.
What are my chances of winning the Powerball?
The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are one in 292.2 million.
Over the past few years, huge lottery jackpots have become more common as lottery officials have changed the rules and ticket prices to boost top prizes.
Powerball's biggest change came in 2021 when officials decided to add a Monday drawing to its weekly lineup of Wednesday and Saturday evening drawings. At the time of the announcement, Powerball proclaimed the addition of the Monday drawing would lead to "larger, faster-growing jackpots."