New Hampshire Powerball ticket matches winning numbers for $487 million jackpot

(Reuters) – A Powerball ticket sold in New Hampshire matched the winning numbers for the game’s jackpot of $487 million in a drawing on Saturday that marked the eighth-biggest lottery prize ever in the United States, a lottery official said.

The numbers drawn in the 11 p.m. EDT drawing on Saturday were 11, 17, 21, 23, 32 and the Powerball number of 5, according to the Powerball website.

A single winning ticket was sold in New Hampshire, said North Dakota Lottery director Randy Miller, chair of the Powerball group. In some past drawings, the jackpot has been split between multiple winning tickets.

The single ticket from the latest drawing is worth the winner’s choice of $487 million spread over 30 years or $341.7 million in a lump-sum payment, before federal taxes.

This was the fifth largest Powerball jackpot in the game’s history.

The Powerball game is based on lottery tickets sold for $2 apiece. It is played in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The latest drawing came more than two months after a $429.6 million winning Powerball ticket was sold in New Jersey, and about two weeks after a $540 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot was clinched in Indiana.

The largest lottery prize offered in North America was a Powerball jackpot worth nearly $1.6 billion for winning tickets sold in California, Tennessee and Florida in January.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, editing by Larry King)