It wasn't for the $588 million jackpot, but a group of Columbus police officers will split $1 million from a winning Powerball ticket they purchased at a gas station near Grandview Heights.
Lt. Kevin Conley was among about two dozen officers who pooled their money to buy more than 50 tickets for Wednesday night's huge drawing.
The mood in the office was "pretty low-key" after they found out they had matched five of the six winning numbers, he said.
"You're talking to a whole bunch of cops. We're not a whole bunch of people who are going to be jumping around, running around and screaming and yelling," he said. "Everybody's happy, and they're smiling."
The Powerball is played in 42 states, plus Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands, and two tickets matched Wednesday night's drawing for the $588 million jackpot: one in Fountain Hills, Ariz., and the other in Dearborn, Mo. Those winners, who hadn't been named as of last night, had all five numbers as well as the sixth Powerball number.
The Missouri winner is to be introduced today.
To win $1 million, the Columbus police officers guessed five numbers but not the Powerball number. The winner of a similar $1 million ticket sold at a Cleveland BP station paid an extra dollar for the Power Play, automatically increasing that ticket's win to $2 million. That winner has not been identified.
Conley said he doesn't normally play the lottery, but he contributed $5 to the office pool for a little camaraderie.
"I didn't even give it a second thought," Conley said.
The police officers' $2 ticket was bought at the Grandview Sunoco, 648 Grandview Ave. Most of the officers are with the auto-theft unit or the fraud and forgery unit.
Conley said the Columbus police officers' ticket had the number 5 for the Powerball -- one off from the winning 6. But he's not complaining: After taxes, the officers will take home about $30,000 each.
It's not enough to change their lives, perhaps, but it will make for a pretty happy holiday.
"Who can complain in a position like that right now?" Conley said. "Many other people would take our place."
Between 5 and 7 p.m. on Wednesday, more than 3 million tickets were sold in Ohio. Ohio Lottery Commission spokeswoman Danielle Frizzi-Babb said sales were about seven times the normal volume.
As word spreads that the Grandview Sunoco sold a $1 million Powerball ticket, business hopefully will pick up, said employee Vinesh Patel.
The gas station will receive a $1,000 bonus for selling the ticket. The news came a couple of days before the business' firstanniversary on Saturday.
The store plans to hang a banner outside to announce the win.
"It will be crazy after that," Patel said.
In all, 304,427 Ohioans won some cash in Wednesday's drawing. Seventeen won $10,000 each. Winnings in Ohio totaled almost $5 million.
Sales for the drawing totaled more than $19 million in Ohio, and more than $563 million nationally.
Lydia Coutré is a Kent State University journalism major and a fellow in Ohio University's Statehouse News Bureau.
Information from Reuters was used in this story.
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