Boston - Massachusetts lottery officials
on Thursday identified a 53-year-old health care worker who
lives in Chicopee as the winner of more than $750 million in a
Powerball drawing, the largest prize for a single ticket-holder
in the contest's history.
The woman, Mavis Wanczyk, appeared at an afternoon news
conference to claim her prize.
"I wanted to get this over and done with, and then everyone
would leave me alone," Wanczyk, the mother of a 31-year-old
daughter and a 26-year-old son, told reporters on Thursday.
She
said she had worked for the past 32 years at a Springfield
hospital, but added: "I've called them and told them I will not
be coming back."
Powerball said on its website that the single ticket matched
all six numbers drawn on Wednesday night: 6, 7, 16, 23, 26 and
the Powerball of 4.
Wanczyk said she learned of her win when a colleague
encouraged her to check her ticket as she left work on
Wednesday.
"I said: 'I know it's never going to be me; it's just a pipe
dream,'" Wanczyk said, adding that she was shocked to find "I am
a winner."
The winning ticket was sold at a Pride convenience store in
Chicopee, which is located about 145km west of
Boston, according to the Massachusetts State Lottery.
The owner
of that store plans to donate to charity the $50 000 prize he
will receive for selling the winning ticket, the commission's
executive director, Michael Sweeney, told reporters.
The state lottery had originally said the winning ticket was
sold in Watertown, a suburb of Boston, but corrected its
announcement hours later.
"This was the result of a human error," Sweeney said. "Our
internal systems, and I want to be clear about this, our
internal systems always had the correct information."
Wanczyk will have a choice of receiving annual payments
totaling $758.7 million over 29 years, or a lump sum of more
than $440 million, before taxes.
Beyond retiring early, she did not say how she planned to
spend her winnings.
The odds of a ticket having all six winning numbers are
292.2 million to 1, according to the Multi-State Lottery
Association.
Powerball tickets are sold in 44 US states, and
Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; and the US Virgin Islands.
No one had won the Powerball's top prize in the twice-weekly
drawings since June 10, when a California man won $447.8
million.