Tool shop workers said to be Powerball winners:
Thursday July 30 10:44 AM EDT
WESTERVILLE, Ohio (Reuters) - Thirteen machine shop workers from Ohio won the biggest-ever Powerball lottery prize -- a cash lump sum of $161.5 million before taxes -- a spokeswoman for the company where they work said Thursday.
"We know that they won, but the workers right now want to stay anonymous," said Barb Palmer, head of accounting at ATS Ohio Inc., in Westerville, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, in a telephone interview.
Asked if she had seen the ticket, Palmer declined to comment. "They do have the ticket," she said, refusing to answer further questions.
The workers were on their way Thursday to Indianapolis to claim the prize with the winning ticket bought by one of them at a gas station in Richmond, Ind., on the Ohio border, reported WTVN radio, an ABC affiliate in Columbus.
If confirmed as the winning ticket holders, the workers beat 80 million-to-1 odds to capture the jackpot.
A lump sum payment was chosen by the holder of the winning ticket, said Jim Maguire, director of Indiana's Hoosier Lottery, who confirmed the winning ticket was sold in Richmond.
More than 210 million Powerball tickets were sold in the four days since the last drawing failed to produce a winner. The winning numbers, drawn on Wednesday night in a television studio in Des Moines from two rotating barrels containing numbered rubber balls, were 8, 39, 43, 45, 49 and the red Powerball number was 13.
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