By Todd Northrop
There was no jackpot winner in the Wednesday night drawing of the multi-state Powerball game, causing the grand prize to increase to an estimated $253 million for Saturday's drawing.
Wednesday was the 13th consecutive drawing without a jackpot winner.
The estimated cash value for the new jackpot is $170.5 Million. After-tax cash and annuity prize amounts are reported state-by-state on the Jackpot Analysis page at USA Mega, a web site devoted to the Powerball and Mega Millions multi-state lottery games.
This is the largest Powerball jackpot since Feb. 11, 2012, when 81-year-old Louise White of Newport, R.I., won a $336.4 million Powerball jackpot (see Rhode Island woman, 81, claims $336 Million Powerball jackpot, Lottery Post, March 6, 2012).
Players should note that jackpot amounts are conservative estimates provided by the lotteries, and are often somewhat higher by the time the drawing occurs.
Even though there were no jackpot winners, 22 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1,000,000 prize: 1 from Connecticut, 2 from Florida, 2 from Georgia, 2 from Illinois, 1 from Indiana, 1 from Kansas, 1 from Michigan, 3 from New Hampshire, 3 from New Jersey, 2 from New York, 1 from Ohio, 1 from Oklahoma, 1 from Oregon, and 1 from Washington, D.C.
Of all the second-prize winners, only one ticket from Florida was purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1. Because they purchased the Power Play, that particular ticket is now worth $2 million.
145 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. Of those tickets, 29 were purchased with the Power Play option, increasing the prize to $40,000.
When a Powerball ticket is purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1 per ticket, any non-jackpot prize is increased according to a fixed prize schedule, which can be found on the Powerball Drawing Detail page at USA Mega, as well as on the Powerball Prize Payouts page at Lottery Post.
The Powerball winning numbers for Wednesday, August 8, were 3, 7, 11, 15, and 28, with Powerball number 12.
Wednesday evening's Powerball jackpot rollover is unusual considering the fact that all of the first five numbers and the Powerball number were less than 31 — "birthday numbers", in lottery lingo. Since one of the most popular ways to play the lottery is to pick numbers based on birthdays of family members, lottery drawings containing all low numbers normally are more likely to produce a jackpot winner. With the larger ticket volume purchased due to the high jackpot, the odds were good that somebody would win it all — and in fact 22 tickets came very close, matching all the numbers except the Powerball number.
Following the Wednesday drawing, the Powerball annuity jackpot estimate was raised $41 million from its previous amount of $212 million. The cash value was raised by $27.6 million from its previous amount of $142.9 million.
The next Powerball drawing will take place Saturday evening at 10:59 pm EDT.
Powerball is now played in 42 states, plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Wednesdays and Saturdays at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2 each.
Powerball lottery results are published within minutes of the drawing at USA Mega.