Two Kansas lottery tickets worth $1 million after Powerball drawing
No Powerball tickets sold in Kansas matched the grand prize of an estimated $1.5 billion, but lottery officials on Thursday said two tickets were worth $1 million.
One of those million-dollar tickets was sold in south-central Kansas, while the other was sold in western Kansas, according to lottery officials. Those two tickets matched the first five numbers – 4, 8, 19, 27 and 34 – but not the Powerball of 10.
Seven more tickets matched four of the first five numbers plus the Powerball and are worth $50,000 apiece, lottery officials said. Three were sold in northeast Kansas, two in north central, one in south central Kansas and one in the southeast corner of the state.
Kansas Lottery officials don’t release the name of the store where winning tickets were purchased — or even the town in which they were purchased — until the ticket is actually claimed, said Sally Lunsford, a spokeswoman for the lottery. That policy helps prevent fraudulent claims, she said.
Winners have up to one full year to claim their prizes.
Three Powerball tickets matched Wednesday night’s numbers for the estimated $1.5 billion grand prize – one each in California, Tennessee and Florida.
A total of 190,346 Kansas Lottery tickets won $3,274,686 in prizes in Wednesday’s drawing. To see a list of prizes won in Kansas last night, go to Prizes Won in Kansas.
“It’s great to see that big prizes were won throughout the state,” Kansas Lottery executive director Terry Presta said in a prepared statement. “We’re excited to meet the winners.”
Total Kansas Powerball sales were $9.68 million, easily surpassing the record of $6.77 million set just last Saturday, lottery officials said. At the peak of the buying frenzy, players were buying Powerball tickets at the rate of $12,140 per minute between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. Sales the next hour averaged $11,446 a minute.
The Powerball jackpot returns to $40 million for Saturday’s drawing.
Stan Finger: 316-268-6437, @StanFinger
This story was originally published January 14, 2016 at 8:24 AM with the headline "Two Kansas lottery tickets worth $1 million after Powerball drawing."