Ding ding ding, we have a winner.
Mavis Wanczyk, 53, of Chicopee, Mass. has been identified as the winner of the Powerball jackpot.
A gas station in Chicopee, a Western Massachusetts town of about 55,000 people, sold the winning Powerball jackpot ticket, making Wanczyk the lucky winner of the largest amount won by a single ticket in North American lottery history, according to Massachusetts State Lottery.
The Powerball jackpot drawn on Wednesday was a whopping $758.7 million.
Wanczyk purchased the winning ticket at the Pride Station & Store at 27 Montgomery St. in Chicopee. Massachusetts State Lottery initially reported that the ticket was purchased at the Handy Variety convenience store in Watertown, but corrected the information on Thursday morning.
Handy Variety, located at 95 Common St., did sell a $1 million prize winning ticket, as did Sandy’s Variety, 378 Washington St. Dorchester.
The winning Powerball jackpot numbers were 6, 7, 16, 23, 26 and the Powerball number was 4.
Wanczyk said at a press conference that she picked numbers based of off her family members’ birthdays. She’s a mother of two, a 31-year-old daughter and a 26-year-old son.
Wanczyk learned that her ticket was the winner when she was leaving work. A coworker checked her numbers and told her she just won.
“He said, ‘sign that ticket now,'” Wanczyk said. “I couldn’t drive or anything. He followed me to make sure I got safely home.”
For 32 years, Wanczyk has worked at Mercy Medical Center in Springfield. She said that she hoped to retire in 12 years, but now that her “pipe dream” has come true, she doesn’t plan on going back at all.
Wanczyk came forward as the winner, she said, so that she could “get it over and done with,” and then hopefully be left alone. When asked how she plans on celebrating tonight, she said, “I’m going to go hide in my bed.”
State Treasurer Deb Goldberg, who introduced Wanczyk to the press, said that the state plans to be as helpful to Wanczyk and her family as possible.
“We have done a lot of financial literacy programs through the state treasurey and my office of economic empowerment, with a focus on women, so we’re standing ready to be supportive,” Goldberg said. “We’re making sure she and her family have the resources they need to make the best decisions for them.”
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338, according to the Powerball, and the overall odds of winning any prize at all are 1 in 24.87.
Along with the largest sum won by a single ticket, this jackpot marks the second largest jackpot in the history of the U.S. lottery. It was the game’s highest since its world-record setting $1.586 billion jackpot in January 2016, according to Massachusetts State Lottery.
For that world-record setting jackpot, tickets sold in California, Florida and Tennessee each won a share.
The cash option for this prize is an estimated $443.3 million; the winnings can be collected as a lump sum or in 30 annual payments.
Several tickets in other states also won big. Six other tickets won $2 million each and 34 more tickets won $1 million, Powerball Product Group Chair Charlie McIntyre said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
This is the fourth time a winning Powerball jackpot ticket was sold in Massachusetts, according to the state lottery. The previous times occurred in 2013, 2012 and 2011.
