WATERVILLE — A $2.3 million lottery ticket was sold at the Cumberland Farms store on College Avenue over the weekend, state lottery officials announced Monday.

The winning ticket was presented at the Maine State Lottery office in Augusta, but the winner’s name won’t be released until early next week, Michael Boardman, marketing manager for the lottery, said.

The Cumberland Farms is located just a four-minute drive from a Big Apple convenience store in neighboring Fairfield, where an $8.2 million winning ticket was purchased in September by Linda Von Oesen, of Fairfield.

“Apparently, that’s the right place to buy tickets,” Boardman said. “There’s something lucky happening in that neck of the woods.”

The winning Megabucks Plus numbers of 2-3-5-16-38, with Megaball number 6, were drawn Saturday.

The largest jackpot ever hit for the Tri-State Megabucks Plus game, which takes place in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire, was for $16.4 million and was split between two people.

The only other tri-state jackpot winner during the past year won a $2.1 million jackpot in December in New Hampshire.

The new jackpot for Megabucks has been reset at its $1 million minimum.

The Waterville winner will not collect $2.3 million, because the tax rate on the winnings is 30 percent. The federal government’s tax rate is 25 percent and the state’s is 5 percent.

The jackpot amount of $2.3 million is based on interest payments and is the total amount that would be paid out over a 30-year period.

The winner also has an option to take a lump sum, an option that Von Oesen and her husband, Bob, exercised in September. Their lump sum of $4,148,922 amounted to a little more than half the jackpot.

If the winner of the $2.3 million jackpot takes a lump sum, the pre-tax amount would be $1,375,895, Boardman said.

Boardman said that when the economy is stronger and interest rates higher, the 30-year jackpot amount is higher compared with the lump sum option. But in a slow economy with low interest rates, as has been the case for the last several years, winners are more likely to take the lump sum.

Boardman said the five-day period gives the winners time to follow the state’s suggestion that they get financial advice.

“I’d almost call it a cooling-off period,” he said. “That works well for people.”

The outlet that sold the ticket gets 1 percent of the jackpot amount up to a maximum of $30,000. In this case, Cumberland Farms will receive $23,000.

Cumberland Farms spokesman Derek Beckwith said the company was “thrilled that Maine’s newest millionaire is one of our very own.”

He also said the staff at the convenience store will share in the good fortune.

“Whenever the company receives a lottery commission of $10,000 or more, as we will in this case, Cumberland Farms takes advantage of the occasion to give bonuses to the store manager and employees,” he said, which he said is “a way to reward them for working so hard every day to serve our customers.”

Beckwith didn’t say what the specific bonus amounts would be.

No one has yet come forward to claim a $338.3 million national Powerball jackpot that was drawn Saturday night, according to The Associated Press. The winning ticket for that jackpot, the sixth-largest in history, was sold in a Passaic, N.J., liquor store, the AP reported.

Matt Hongoltz-Hetling — 861-9287
mhhetling@centralmaine.com