4th biggest Powerball jackpot over the last 2 years
Mega Millions also in rarified territory
The multi-state Powerball lottery drawing happened last night once again without any jackpot winners, causing the new jackpot for Saturday's drawing to grow to an estimated $213 million, with a cash option of $104.7 million.
Wednesday night was the 13th consecutive drawing without a jackpot winner.
Even though there were no jackpot winners, six lucky tickets matched the first five numbers for a $200,000 second-place prize: 1 from Colorado, 1 from Kansas, 1 from Minnesota, 1 from Missouri, 1 from Nebraska, and 1 from Pennsylvania. None of the second-place tickets was sold with the Power Play option, which would have multiplied the prize to a sizeable $1 million.
41 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. Of those tickets, nine also were purchased with the Power Play option, multiplying the prize by 3 for a total cash prize of $30,000.
The Powerball winning numbers for Wednesday, August 12, were 10-25-32-34-47, with Powerball number 5. The Power Play number was 3.
Only three jackpots in the past two years have been larger than the upcoming Saturday drawing.
The May 27 jackpot, worth $232 million in yearly payments, was hit by a 23-year-old South Dakota rancher who opted for the lump sum. The check was for $88,504,147 after taxes were withheld.
The March 15, 2008, prize reached $276 million before being snagged by eight coworkers in a West Virginia tax office.
On Aug. 25, 2007, one of the biggest Powerball prizes ever, $314 million, was hit in Indiana. An Ohio man and his two children collected.
Players purchased $43,450,620 in Powerball and Power Play tickets between Sunday and Wednesday night.
A total of 1,129,714 tickets across the USA won more than $8.2 million in prizes playing "America's Game". 190,456 of those winning tickets were purchased with the Power Play option, which multiplied the prize by 3 Wednesday.
When a Powerball ticket is purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1 per ticket, any non-jackpot prize is multiplied from 2-5 times, depending on a computerized random number generated that evening. Second-place Power Play-enabled tickets matching five numbers but not the Powerball are always multiplied by 5 times, for a $1 million prize.
The lotteries sold $2.56 billion in Powerball tickets in fiscal year 2009, translating into over $743 million for state projects.
Powerball is now played in 30 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Wednesdays and Saturdays at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
Mega Millions also on the rise
The Mega Millions multi-state lottery jackpot is nothing to sneeze at either.
Friday's Mega Millions jackpot is worth $146 million, or $90 million with the cash option.
There was no jackpot winner in the Tuesday, August 11, Mega Millions drawing, but 18 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $250,000 prize: 4 from California, 1 from Georgia, 1 from Illinois, 2 from Michigan, 3 from New Jersey, 2 from New York, 3 from Ohio, 1 from Texas, and 1 from Virginia.
The four California second-place winners might be a little disappointed though: their prize will only pay $74,454 — before taxes.
That's because unlike the other Mega Millions states, California pays out all prize levels using a pari-mutuel system that adjusts the prize by calculating the amount wagered and the numbers of winners. If there were only one second place winner, they would have received a $297,816 prize, but because there were four winners, the prize will be divided equally between the winners.
The California pari-mutuel prizes can work the opposite too: in the past there have been second-place winners receiving more than $1 million.
A total of $8,153,707 was awarded in prizes from Tuesday's Mega Millions drawing, not including multiplied prizes from the Texas Megaplier feature. The Megaplier, unique to Texas, work similarly to Powerball's Power Play feature, and like the Power Play, costs an extra $1 per ticket to purchase.
The Mega Millions winning numbers for Tuesday, August 11, 2009, were 6-12-15-32-42, with Mega Ball number 40. The Texas Megaplier number was 3.
Mega Millions is currently available in twelve states: California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. Drawings are Tuesdays and Fridays at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
Going to get my tickets tomorrow. Good luck to my Lottery Post family. And Todd if I win you better overnight me a shirt so I can wear it to the press conference!!
good idea garner, i want one too, im headed to the border to get me a few tickets!!!
WoW! $213 million ($78,525,000 cash here in PA)...
That'll be enough for me!
Can't wait for the next draw already! Good luck to us all!!!
you have to keep in mind that powerball odds incresed from 142 to 196 million for the jackpot...that is a big jump of 54 million more combinations...now the biggest jackpot was in august 2007 when someone in ohio won it (~360 million)....it could very well sometime or another be that it reaches close to $400 mill again....
i really dont care personally because 1 million is just fine for me...it just a publicity stunt with this game..they purposely design these games this way with high odds so they can sell more tickets and get as many people they can to jump into the feeding frenzy...
personally i think its not good for the public as a whole...it could be that a pool shares it but it can be a single person just as well...this format with impossible odds that drives the pot higher and higher so they can draw more people into just doesn't do players as a whole any good in my opinion...it would be better to design a game where multiple different winners can share a few millions and not just one person winning 300 million...they could make it so that every state awards a mini jackpot on their own every time the pot reaches a certain level or the 5+0 winners get a bigger piece of the pie...but i dont think it would work because people play for the big money and no one cares about the next guy...personally i only chip in $1 every time..this is just silly in my opinion where they are headed with these games
yeah i would like to see more winners too, i dont mind sharing....
I got the winning ticket......................
Time to take a trip to PA or DE.....
We need to bring Power Ball to California.I'd love to play this game !.
benmas , dude, no one forces the public as whole to play
whats Best for the public is freedom of choice, and i think they have that already@
a lot of the state lotto, now have tryed raffle games
aka many million raffle ticket prizes, and so forth,
the public had their chance, at "spreading the weath in jackpots" by having a large set of winners compared to 1 or 2 so forth
its not catching on fire like a big lotto would , but its not bad ether!, its just not that popular as a large pb/mm is to players
, thats 1 thing about betting money,
no one forces anyone to do anything, if you give the players more "smaller prizes , better overall odds" games
they sure end up playing the Much higher odds for the big jackpots, its just how us humans perfer to bet, killer risks for killer rewards per say
if am going to bet, i place my bets on the underdog"me vs odds" and dream what if i win it big!
i also play like 1 buck, however once it gets high, i up my game to 5 bucks, just for the hell of it,
at lest in tn, i know even as a loser, my money goes to some school kid cost of learning, so am fine with it
plus a few cents to the winners, its just "spreading the money around", long as no one force's me to spread the money around, i spread it around LOLZ,
but yea, 1 thing we don't need is taxes, thats way more harm to the public
the lotto is no enemy to the public, Taxes are,
they steal by force your money
and give it to failing companys, and now they want to give it to people who don't take care of their own bodys, and prevention is the key,
their so many issues with rewarding people who don;t take care of their body, eat right, and work out and avoid junk food with free health care, its a insane idea to make us pay for all these lazy fat ass's
i say we need less goverment and more freedom form taxes, lotto are the best way to make money, if the only income was by the public free choice of how much they want to give
they would be put in line so fast, no bailouts for any one, no free health care, no nonething, if the state lotto started bailing out failing companys, i would stop playing, so many others would to i think
they would get the msg
forced taxes are the public nitemare, not the lotto
go atfer the real danger to the public ,run away govt spending, with a unlimited credit card with you footing the bill, by forced taxes, its a outrage
I regret that I can't play the powerball, but I have lucky numbers for anyone who wants it. They are 11,13,17,30,52 and 24. Also, 03,12,27,45,46 and 21 Good luck to all
Good luck to all those playing. I am also picking up a couple of tickets tomorrow.
i picked up 80 powerball tickets and 10 ($2 FL Lotto) FL lotto tickets for total of $100.
i thought about making it all 100 powerball tickets, but given that FL Lotto Jackpot is almost $30 million for $2 ticket, i couldnt resist. plus, FL Lotto's odds are much better (1:22,000,000 v.s. 1:195,000,000)
Those look like MegaMillions numbers.
I wish it would get to Arkansas a little sooner