S.C.’s first Powerball produces one winner

Amy Geier Edgar

Thursday, Oct. 10, 2002 | 9:54 a.m.

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Someone came up with a lucky lottery ticket in South Carolina's initial participation in the Powerball drawing.

Lottery officials say no one won the $36 million jackpot.

The South Carolina Education Lottery had its first Powerball drawing Wednesday night. The winning numbers were 9-10-38-42-43 and the Powerball was 5. Drawings will take place at 11 p.m every Wednesday and Saturday. The prize goes to an estimated $44 million for Saturday's drawing.

Powerball officials in Des Moines, Iowa, said five tickets matched the first five numbers, but missed the Powerball. Those $100,000 tickets were sold in South Carolina, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

There is no guarantee of any winner in a Powerball drawing, but one lucky person drives away in a fire-engine red Volkswagen Beetle as part of the "Powerbug" promotion.

The car was filled with 17,166 pingpong balls. In the past two weeks, about 9,000 people entered postcards to guess the correct number of balls. Guesses ranged from one to more than 1 million, said Kara Mock, spokeswoman for the lottery's advertising agency, NS&G of Columbia.

Lottery officials, along with security and an independent auditor, spent two hours Wednesday removing and counting the balls, which filled 19 trash bags, said Brian Rish, contract coordinator for the state lottery.

The winning guess was off by just six -- Thomas Sweetman of Clover guessed 17,160 -- lottery spokeswoman Tara Robertson said.

Sweetman said he and his wife, Cara, counted the number of balls from front to back and across the front. They then estimated the depth of the number of balls and multiplied those numbers.

Sweetman, 55, said he was surprised to hear that he won. "I wasn't expecting it," he said. "I've never won anything."

Sweetman, a truck driver for The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer, said he and his wife needed a second car, "so this will come in handy."

Powerball tickets first went on sale at 3,000 lottery retailers in South Carolina late Saturday and sales have been strong.

When sales stopped about an hour before the drawing, the state had sold more than $1.1 million in Powerball tickets Wednesday, and more than $2.3 million in Powerball tickets since sales began Saturday, Robertson said.

Sales increased each day. In the first hour that tickets were available, players bought $29,707 worth, Robertson said.

On Sunday, $273,000 worth was sold; $377,000 worth was sold Monday; and $478,948 worth was sold Tuesday, Robertson said.

Powerball sales spiked Wednesday, with many people waiting until the last minute to purchase tickets, she said. At one point Wednesday evening, sales reached about $3,500 a minute, she said. Lottery employees were at several retail locations to help players fill out and understand the play slips.

Overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 36, but odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 120 million.