Powerball player hits $256 million jackpot. Where in the US was the lucky ticket sold?

A Powerball ticket sold in New York hit the $256 million jackpot, lottery officials said.

The ticket matched five winning numbers and the Powerball in the drawing Saturday, December 7, the national Powerball site said.

The grand prize now drops to an estimated $20 million, with a cash value of $9.7 million, for the next drawing Monday, December 9, the site said.

The winning numbers were 1, 31, 43, 55 and 57, with a Powerball of 22, the lottery said. The Power Play was 2x.

The jackpot winner was sold at Hua Lian Supermarket in Queens in New York City, the New York Lottery said.

Nearly 570,000 other Powerball tickets sold in the United States also won prizes ranging from $4 to $100,000, the lottery said.

The Powerball jackpot had previously gone unclaimed since October 23, when a Georgia player won the $478 million grand prize, lottery officials said. What to know about Powerball

To score a jackpot in the Powerball, a player must match all five white balls and the red Powerball.

The odds of scoring the jackpot prize are 1 in 292,201,338. Tickets can be bought on the day of the drawing, but sales times and price vary by state.

Drawings are broadcast Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays at 10:59 p.m. ET and can be streamed online.

Powerball is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

John F. McCarthy is a veteran journalist in the Caribbean, writing from the "Decision Space" where survival meets the surreal. His reporting steel was tempered by a lineage of legendary editors and broadcasters, including Ed Wynn Brant (The Bomb), Owen Eschenroder (Ann Arbor News), Lynelle Emanuel (BVI Beacon), and Charles Thanas (WSVI-TV). Alongside longtime colleague Kenneth C. "Casey" Clark, McCarthy has navigated the front lines of the territory’s history—from the 1997 volcanic "snow" to every major hurricane since Hugo. Known for leaning out of doorless helicopters to capture the "money shot," McCarthy now edits the V.I. Free Press, providing the essential link between the island's colonial past and its SpaceX future.