Powerball: Powerball lottery jackpot rolls to $48 Million
The Powerball jackpot continues to grow, as North Carolina officially joined the Powerball lottery as the 31st member-jurisdiction.
Even though the grand prize was not hit Wednesday evening, 419,716 players across the nation won a total of more than $4.1 million in prizes in "America's Game".
Because no one correctly matched all six numbers the jackpot will jump to an estimated $48 million for Saturday night's drawing.
The cash option for the Saturday, June 3rd drawing will be an estimated $21.3 million.
The numbers drawn Wednesday were 10, 20, 22, 43, 49 and the Powerball was 3. The Power Play multiplier was 5.
Two lucky tickets in the states of Kentucky (1), and North Carolina (1) correctly matched the 5 white numbers and won $200,000.
Eighteen tickets matched 4 white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. Seven additional winners of that prize category also had the Power Play option that multiplied the win 5 times for a total of $50,000.
More than 75,000 winning Powerball players multiplied their prize by 5 Wednesday. They were able to do that by purchasing the Power Play option for one dollar. With Power Play you multiply any winnings from 2-5 times, except for the jackpot. At the beginning of each drawing a wheel is spun to select that night's multiplier.
Players should carefully check their tickets after every draw. Even if there are no jackpot winners there are always tens of thousands of winners at other prize levels.
Players purchased more than $17.9 million in tickets between Sunday and Wednesday night.
The lotteries have sold approximately $2.6 billion in Powerball tickets so far in fiscal year 2006. That translates into approximately $725 million for worthwhile state projects.