Aug 7, 10:47 AM (ET)
ST. CLOUD, Wis. (AP) - A group of about 100 cheese-factory workers say they hold the winning ticket for the $208.6 million Powerball jackpot.
Officially, no one had come forward yet Monday to claim the jackpot, said Wisconsin Lottery spokeswoman Jessica Iverson.
However, the group of workers employed by Sargento Cheese in Plymouth told WITI-TV in Milwaukee on Sunday that they were the ones who bought the ticket with the winning numbers that were picked Saturday, and they had it locked in a safe somewhere.
Some of the ticket-holders gathered Sunday at a tavern in St. Cloud to celebrate with friends and relatives.
"It still hasn't sunk in," Jon Arnhoelter, who has worked at Sargento for nine years, said in a telephone interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I guess until the check's in hand, I guess I find it hard to believe."
The factory workers have pooled their money for several years at $1 apiece whenever the jackpot rose to $100 million or more, Arnhoelter said. They planned to contact a lawyer before deciding when to turn in the ticket.
They didn't say if they would take the jackpot in a one-time payout or the 29-year annuity. Iverson said the one-time option would be worth $95.8 million.
The winning ticket was sold at Ma and Pa's Grocery Express in Fond du Lac along the so-called "Miracle Mile," a stretch of South Main Street where several stores sold multimillion-dollar tickets during the 1990s. Ma and Pa's sold a winning Megabucks ticket worth $6.5 million in 1994 and has sold tickets that won $500,000, $250,000 and $100,000. Powerball is played in 29 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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