The largest single-ticket Powerball prize in US history has been claimed by a Massachusetts hospital worker who promptly quit her job only hours after learning she had won the 758.7 million dollar (£592 million) prize.
“The first thing I want to do is just sit back and relax,” Mavis L Wanczyk told reporters at a news conference. “I called and told them I will not be coming back.”
Ms Wanczyk, 53, chose to take a lump sum payment of 480 million dollars (£374 million), or 336 million dollars (£262 million) after taxes, lottery officials said.
Mavis Wanczyk laughs beside state treasurer Deb Goldberg during a news conference (Josh Reynolds/AP)
The previous evening, she recalled, she was leaving work with a firefighter and remarked: “It’s never going to be me. It’s just a pipe dream that I’ve always had.”
Then she read the number on her ticket and realised she had won.
Ms Wanczyk has two adult children, a daughter and a son.
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