A lucky ticket holder in the US has scooped a $2.04bn jackpot (£1.76bn!!!), the biggest lottery prize in history.
The winner bought the ticket in California after a rollover went on for three months without anyone winning the top prize.
The jackpot ticket was sold at Joe’s Service Center in Altadena, northeast of Los Angeles.
Powerball players who shop at Joe’s will now be rushing to check if they have become the country’s latest billionaire.
Whoever it is has become the 1,292nd richest person in the world, according to the latest Forbes billionaires list.
They are in joint place with nearly 50 other billionaires including those who have accumulated their wealth in the oil industry, real estate and Greek yoghurt.
The winning numbers drawn at the Florida Lottery studio in Tallahassee were white balls 10, 33, 41, 47 and 56.
The red Powerball was 10.
The winner had to guess all six lucky numbers, including the final Powerball, to scoop the jackpot.
The new jackpot tops the previous record prize of $1.586bn (£1.398bn) won in 2016 by three Powerball players in California, Florida and Tennessee.
The latest jackpot reached an estimated $1.9bn (£1.6bn) on Monday, but it increased to $2.04bn (£1.8bn) this morning after updated calculations.
The winning ticket holder is the first to scoop a Powerball jackpot since 3 August when a player from Pennsylvania took home more than $200m (£177m).
That string of 39 consecutive draws without a winner was a reflection of the tough odds of winning a jackpot – at one in 292.2 million.
Only four previous jackpot have topped $1bn (around £860m) but none of those is close to today’s prize, which started at $20m (£17m) on 6 August, but has swelled over three winless months.
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The latest draw was meant to take place on Monday night but was delayed until 8.57am eastern US time (1.57pm UK) on Tuesday.
The Multi-State Lottery Association said the draw was delayed because a participating lottery had issues processing sales.
The association said it was against its policy to say which lottery had the delay.
The $2.04bn prize is for a winner who chooses an annuity, paid annually over 29 years. Nearly all winners instead opt for cash, but the value of that option wasn’t immediately available Tuesday morning.
The game is played in 45 states, as well as Washington DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
