1 winning ticket from South Carolina

Final jackpot total of $399.4 million is fifth-largest ever in USA

By Todd Northrop

Wednesday's massive Powerball jackpot that generated millions of ticket sales this week has been won by a single ticket sold in South Carolina.

The $399.4 million Powerball jackpot, which is the fifth-largest of any lottery game in history, started as a $40 million prize on August 10, 2013, and continued accumulating prize money for 12 consecutive drawings, until it was finally won Wednesday.

Early Sunday morning the game's organizer estimated Wednesday's jackpot at $400 million, and that estimate turned out to be almost exactly correct.  By Wednesday evening after all the ticket sales were counted, the actual jackpot amount stood at $399.4 million — the fifth-highest recorded by any lottery game in history, and the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot ever.

The final lump-sum cash value of the jackpot is $223.3 million, ranking as the eighth-largest jackpot cash value ever.

The Powerball winning numbers for Wednesday, September 18, 2013, were 7, 10, 22, 32, and 35, with Powerball number 19.

The lucky ticket was sold at Murphy USA on Augusta Road in Lexington, according to South Carolina Educational Lottery Executive Director Paula Harper Bethea. The town of just under 20,000 is right in the middle of the Palmetto State.

South Carolina lottery officials advised the winner to "sign the back of the ticket, put it in a safe location, seek financial or legal advice from a trusted source, and then come forward to claim the ticket."

The big jackpot winner is not the only one to bring home a heap of cash Wednesday night.

In addition to the jackpot winners, 12 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1,000,000 prize: 2 from California, 2 from Florida (both with Power Play), 2 from Georgia, 1 from New Jersey, 2 from New York, 2 from Pennsylvania (1 with Power Play), and 1 from South Carolina.

The 2 California second-prize winners will each be awarded $873,083, because California does not award fixed prizes. By law, California awards all prizes on a pari-mutuel basis, meaning the prizes will change each drawing based on the number of tickets sold and the number of tickets that won at each prize level.

Of all the second-prize winners, three of the tickets — both tickets sold in Florida and the ticket sold in Pennsylvania — were purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1.  Because they purchased the Power Play, those three tickets are now worth $2 million.

Power Play is not available in California, because the fixed nature of the prize increase offered in Power Play is not compatible with California's pari-mutuel payouts.

169 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000.  Of those tickets, 28 were purchased with the Power Play option, increasing the prize to $40,000, and 25 of the tickets were sold in California, where the prize was worth $5,546 this drawing.

The jackpot for the Saturday Powerball drawing is reset to $40 million.

Powerball is now played in 43 states, plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2 each.

A 44th Powerball state will be added in early 2014, as the state of Wyoming has approved a new state lottery with the intention of joining Powerball and other multi-state lottery games. (See Wyoming officially becomes 44th state with a lottery, Lottery Post, Mar. 14, 2013.)

Powerball lottery results are published within minutes of the drawing at USA Mega (www.usamega.com). The USA Mega Web site provides lottery players in-depth information about the United States's two biggest multi-state lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball.