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The Powerball drama of the century | From delays to riches, here's what happened


A crazy night of Powerball included a strange delay and a historic winner. (7News)
A crazy night of Powerball included a strange delay and a historic winner. (7News)
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"I have, I hope, a winning ticket," Mike Dean of Silver Spring told 7News on Tuesday afternoon outside Tenley Market Liquor in Northwest.

RELATED |Check your tickets: $2.04B Powerball numbers drawn after delay

Like so many, Dean woke up dreaming of a billion-dollar Powerball payoff.

I would help everybody and take a lot of vacations."

7News checked Dean's tickets, but they were not a match.

He won't take home the jackpot that rose to a record $2.04 billion Tuesday after an overnight delay.

7News was on the air when the technical issue arose Monday night.

The 10:59 p.m. drawing did not happen because a participating state lottery needed additional time to process sales and play data, according to Powerball Product Chair Drew Svitko.

"A system glitch is really all that happened that prevented the lottery from validating that all the transactions had to be accounted for."

After nearly 10 hours, the numbers were finally drawn, and the $1.9-billion-dollar prize grew to $2.04 billion.

"In this case, we sold a little bit more than we thought so the jackpot was a little bit higher," Svitko said.

Lottery officials confirmed the winning ticket was purchased at Joe's Service Center in Altadena, California.

ALSO READ |Single ticket sold in California wins record $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot

Twenty-two Powerball tickets, one sold in Maryland, matched five of the six numbers and carried a one-million-dollar prize.

The most Dean won was four dollars.

"I'm not a winner but I feel fine. I tried," he said.

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