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Where’s the winner? Lottery’s Powerball error adds intrigue

A mistake by the Massachusetts State Lottery has injected a little extra drama into the massive $758.7 million Powerball drawing.
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A mistake by the Massachusetts State Lottery has injected a little extra drama into the massive $758.7 million Powerball drawing.

Lottery officials early Thursday corrected the site where the single winning ticket was sold to Chicopee, Massachusetts. Overnight, they had announced the winning ticket was sold at a shop in Watertown, just outside Boston.

But shortly before 8 a.m., the lottery said it had made a mistake, and that the winning ticket was sold at the Pride Station & Store in Chicopee, about halfway across the state.

The lottery did not say how the error was made.

It said the store in Watertown did sell a ticket that won a $1 million prize. Reporters had descended on the store hours before it opened around 6:30 a.m.

Mike Donatelli, a spokesman for the Pride Station & Store in Chicopee, says they were told shortly before 8 a.m. that the store had actually sold that ticket. The jackpot is the largest grand prize won by a single lottery ticket in U.S. history.