Powerball jackpot of nearly $421M to be split by 20 Tennessee co-workers
Many times when Powerball Jackpot winners are revealed, one or two winners will come out and speak. On Tuesday, 20 people walked out instead.
"The Tennessee Twenty" is a group of 20 co-workers at auto parts manufacturer North American Stamping in Portland.
The winning ticket for the $420.9 million jackpot was sold to a member of the group at the Smoke Shop in Lafayette in Macon County, which is about 60 miles northeast of Nashville.
The winning numbers were 17-19-21-37-44 and Powerball 16.
The group has been attempting to win the lottery for eight years.
The cash lump sum payment comes to $254.7 million, which means they're taking home $12.7 million a piece.
And how will they use that money? Some told Channel 4 they'll be putting it toward autism awareness.
Others said they'd like some of their money to go toward Gatlinburg relief efforts.
All said they'll either stay at work or stay long enough to train their replacements.
Meet the lucky winners of the largest lottery jackpots in U.S. history
You must be 18 or older to play the lottery in Illinois.
Jackpots start at $40 million and each set of numbers costs $2.
The overall odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1:292,201,338.
Drawings are held at 9:59 p.m. CT every Wednesday and Saturday.
Winners have to pay 39.6 percent of the prize in federal income taxes, in addition to any state taxes.
Powerball tickets are sold in 44 states, as well as the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
THE 10 HIGHEST US LOTTERY JACKPOTS
The Powerball jackpot in America may be the largest in the world, but there are also large jackpots elsewhere. Spain's massively popular Christmas lottery, known as "El Gordo," is ranked as the world's richest, though it doles out a single jackpot among millions of prizes, instead of one large jackpot like the Powerball. El Gordo last month showered 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) across the country.
As for the U.S., here's a look at the 10 previous highest jackpots and where the winners were from:
1. $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot January 13, 2016 in California, Florida and Tennessee.
2. $656.0 million, Mega Millions, March 30, 2012 (three tickets from Kansas, Illinois and Maryland)
3. $636 million, Mega Millions, Dec. 17, 2013, (two tickets, from California and Georgia)
4. $590.5 million, Powerball, May 18, 2013 (one ticket from Florida)
5. $587.5 million, Powerball, Nov. 28, 2012 (two tickets from Arizona and Missouri)
6. $564.1 million, Powerball, Feb. 11, 2015 (three tickets, from North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Texas)
7. $448.4 million, Powerball, Aug. 7, 2013, (three tickets, one from Minnesota and two from New Jersey)
8. $425.3 million, Powerball, Feb. 19, 2014 (one ticket from California)
9. 420.9 million, Powerball, Nov. 26, 2016, (one ticket from Tennessee)
10. $414 million, Mega Millions, March 18, 2014, (two tickets from Florida and Maryland)
The prize is based on an annuity, which would pay out the money over 29 years. Or you can take the lump sum cash payment at once, but you'd have to pay the tax.
Your chance of being struck by lightning in a year is about one in 960,000. But as lottery officials often note, you have no chance of winning if you don't buy a ticket.
Some players feel they increase their odds of winning by pooling their money with co-workers, with a promise to split the winnings. Joining with colleagues and friends can increase the fun of playing, but the odds of winning are so tiny that adding 50 or 100 chances doesn't matter much. Lottery officials recommend that if people pool their money, they put down rules in writing for splitting the prize, as it's easy for misunderstandings to crop up when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.
The CNNWire contributed to this report.
