BONDURANT, Iowa — A winning $202 million Powerball ticket was purchased at a convenience store in the suburban Des Moines city of Bondurant, but nobody had claimed it by midday Thursday.
Iowa lottery officials encourage people to consult with an attorney or financial planner before stepping forward, so some delay in naming a winner isn’t surprising.
“This amount, $200 million, is a life-changing amount of money, and we want to make sure the winner is prepared for what will come,” Iowa Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer said. “In general, winners have done just that in Iowa. They usually take their time to get their ducks in a row. It’s usually a few weeks or so.”
The prize is the second giant Powerball jackpot sold in Iowa this year. Iowa requires public disclosure of lottery winners’ names.
The single ticket matched the six numbers drawn on Wednesday night. They are: 13, 26, 39, 41, 42 and the Powerball number 10.
A group of 20 Quaker Oats employees in Cedar Rapids shared a $241 million Powerball jackpot when their numbers came up in June. That ticket was Powerball’s 15th-largest jackpot nationally. Wednesday’s $202 million ranks 28th among U.S. lottery jackpots.
The nation’s biggest prize was a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot sold in March. That jackpot was split three ways, as tickets were purchased in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland.
The top Powerball prize was $365 million, won in 2006 by a ConAgra Foods Workers in Lincoln, Neb.
Lottery officials said the winning ticket was bought at the Casey’s General Store in Bondurant, where about $200 worth of tickets are sold a day, said Bo Knop, the company’s area supervisor.
“We’ve had a lot of phone calls and people scampering in to check their tickets,” he said.
Besides the jackpot winner, someone bought a ticket at a Casey’s store in the eastern Iowa city of Williamsburg that is worth $1 million.
In January the price of a Powerball ticket was increased to $2 from $1 and the prizes were adjusted resulting in more frequent higher dollar winners, Neubauer said. The state has had 10 winners of more than $1 million this year.
She said Powerball sales fell about 10 percent after the price increase.
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