Pair of five-digit winning Powerball lottery tickets sold at same Columbia store

Nobody in South Carolina was able to overcome the long odds and win Wednesday night’s billion-dollar Powerball grand prize, but one store in Columbia accomplished an unlikely feat by selling two five-figure winning tickets, lottery officials said.

A pair of Powerball games bought for $2 apiece at the Circle K store at 4760 Forest Drive turned out to be $50,000 winning tickets, South Carolina Education Lottery officials said Thursday in a news release. That’s at the intersection with Trenholm Road.

Both tickets were one number short from capturing the nine-digit grand prize, lottery officials said.

Each ticket matched four of the five white numbers and the red Powerball number.

The winning numbers were 7, 10, 11, 13, 24 and Powerball: 24.

The winners have 180 days to claim the prizes, according to lottery officials.

The winners will be allowed to retain some privacy, as South Carolina is one of 11 states — along with Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas and Virginia — that allow lottery winners to remain anonymous.

The odds of matching four white balls and the red Powerball for the prize are 1-in-913,129, according to the South Carolina Education Lottery website.

“Sign the back of your ticket and put it in a safe location until you’re ready to come forward to claim the prize,” lottery officials said.

For complete information on claiming prizes, go to sceducationlottery.com.

The Circle K store will $500 for each winning ticket when they are turned in to lottery officials, according to the release.

In addition to the Columbia store, there were two other $50,000 winning tickets sold in South Carolina prior to Wednesday’s drawing. Those tickets were bought in Piedmont and Myrtle Beach, lottery officials said.

Since a grand prize winning ticket was sold in California, the next Powerball drawing on Saturday will be for an estimated $20 million prize, according to the release.