by Todd Northrop

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 $212 million, with a cash option of $101.9 million.

Wednesday night was the 9th consecutive drawing without a jackpot winner.

Even though there were no jackpot winners, 11 lucky tickets matched the first five numbers for a $200,000 second-place prize: 2 from Idaho, 1 from Illinois, 1 from Louisiana, 1 from Minnesota, 3 from New York, 2 from Pennsylvania, and 1 from Wisconsin.

One of the second-prize tickets, from Pennsylvania, was purchased with the Power Play option, which has multiplied the ticket-holder's prize to a sizable $1 million.

63 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. Of those tickets, six 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, April 14, were 6, 14, 32, 38, and 52, with Powerball number 20. The Power Play number was 3.

Only four jackpots in the past three years have been larger than the upcoming Saturday drawing.

• On August 19, 2009, a retired South Carolina state employee who spent two bucks on tickets won a $260 million Powerball jackpot.
• 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 $46,105,946 in Powerball and Power Play tickets between Sunday and Wednesday night.

A total of 1,116,331 tickets across the USA won $9,958,868 in prizes playing "America's Game". 169,962 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 42 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Wednesdays and Saturdays at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time.