Powerball lottery officials say one winning ticket was sold for Saturday night's $314 million jackpot.
It was purchased in Indiana.
The pot had grown so huge because there had not been a big winner in any of the drawings since late June.
Also winning big in the drawing were 36 lucky players who matched the first 5 numbers for a second prize win of $200,000.
Winners of the second prize were from the following states: 2 from Arizona, 2 from Connecticut, 3 from Washington, D.C., 1 from Indiana, 1 from Iowa, 3 from Louisiana (2 with Power Play), 4 from Minnesota, 1 from Missouri, 1 from Montana, 1 from North Carolina, 2 from Nebraska, 2 from New Mexico, 1 from Oklahoma (with Power Play), 9 from Pennsylvania (2 with Power Play), 1 from Rhode Island and 2 from Tennessee.
Saturday night's six Powerball numbers are: 2, 8, 23, 29 and 35, with a Powerball of 19.
The jackpot for the multi-state lottery resets to $15 million dollars for Wednesday night's drawing.
And for people out of luck on Powerball, there is another giant lottery jackpot out there. The Mega Millions prize will be worth about $250 million for Tuesday's drawing.
With Powerball at $314 million, everyone feels lucky
Barb Stephens doesn't usually buy lottery tickets. But when the prize is $300 million, she said, how could she resist?
"It's probably been six months since I bought (one)," the Crawfordsville resident said after purchasing her Powerball ticket Saturday afternoon. "But it's so high."
A lot of people who don't normally play the game were trying their luck as the 11 p.m. Powerball drawing drew near on Saturday. The prize? $300 million — about $140 million take home — one of the highest lottery prizes in history. The Hoosier Lottery also was at an all-time high of $44 million.
At the Circle K store on the corner of U.S. 231 and Chestnut Street in Crawfordsville, assistant manager Teresa Aguilar said she's noticed a steady increase in lottery sales throughout the week.
"I had about eight people on Wednesday tell me, 'If I win, I'll come back and get your name,' " Aguilar said.
Her co-worker, Tiara Dowell, said she noticed an increase in the amount people spend, noting about a half-dozen customers spent $20 or more on the tickets and at least one guy bought $50.
"We've had a lot of new people come in, too," Dowell said. "Today, this woman came in and said, 'How do you play this lottery thing? We don't usually play, but it's so big.' "
The same was true at the Speedway across from Wabash Landing in West Lafayette, where customer service representative Jayce Kearns said he even saw one guy spend $100 on tickets.
"As it gets higher," Kearns said, "more people are buying it."
Bob Mullett, of Lafayette, is one of those people. He spent $5 in hopes of beating the 1 to 146,107,962 odds.
"If I win, I'll pay off all my bills and retire," Mullett said. "... I hope I win."
i would have loved to see the madness if it did go to 400 million.well, i guess i have to go back to work on monday.anyway best wishes to the one ticket holder and hope he/she has been a lp reader.
Congratulations to the winner. I hope they take the cash option and don't have financial problems later in life.
I agree with you Todd
Particularly on the "don't have financial problems. Thats a lot of cheese and they could do good for themselves and for so many people if they chose to! Well, I have my bundle of mega Millions, but I think it will roll two more times. I believe this is the year of the double recordbreaker!
Congrats to the winners yada yada... (there should be an automatic post after a story about a winning ticket being sold that says the same thing every time "Congrats and now go into hiding etc.") haven't been to Indiana since 1998... anyway I give you this prediction: there will be a story either Thursday or very soon thereafter that there is a Powerball winner on the $15M jackpot or the next drawing after that, very possibly having chosen their own numbers and not QP. I'm not saying it would be me, either, but someone somewhere!
Well at least I don't have to split my money between the Powerball and Mega Millions now. Although I'd like to see the Mega Millions roll a few more times for fun, I'd like to be the winner this Tues. It doesn't really matter anyhow because the cash option is the same as the Powerball was, so my fingers are crossed!
So looking at this using the spreadsheet provided by the group running Powerball, the first payment of the annuity would be over $5.6 Million and go up from there. I estimate that if the person takes the cash option, they would have to earn more than 8.7% annually on the entire balance to exceed what the annuity would pay out.
Either way, it's a nice chunk of change for a single person (especially if they are single ).
I hope it wasn't won by a pool of workers where everyone didn't contribute because those that didn't contribute will think the jackpot is big enough to share regardless and will try to hinder the winners from collecting their money.
Yeah I knew it would be last night.
I don't think it will ever reach $400 million.
Congratulations to the winner. I hope they take the cash option and don't have financial problems later in life.
i would have loved to see the madness if it did go to 400 million.well, i guess i have to go back to work on monday.anyway best wishes to the one ticket holder and hope he/she has been a lp reader.
I agree with you Todd
Particularly on the "don't have financial problems. Thats a lot of cheese and they could do good for themselves and for so many people if they chose to! Well, I have my bundle of mega Millions, but I think it will roll two more times. I believe this is the year of the double recordbreaker!
unless its one of my relatives .....
I hope the lucky bum/s have all kinds of troubles !!!!
Well I don't know who the winner from Indiana is but I can tell you who it isn't
Jim
NOPE!
Standard play as always. Five lines with Powerball is all I ever play regardless of the jackpot size. $15 million or $300 million I play the same.
Jim
Congrats to the winners yada yada... (there should be an automatic post after a story about a winning ticket being sold that says the same thing every time "Congrats and now go into hiding etc.") haven't been to Indiana since 1998... anyway I give you this prediction: there will be a story either Thursday or very soon thereafter that there is a Powerball winner on the $15M jackpot or the next drawing after that, very possibly having chosen their own numbers and not QP. I'm not saying it would be me, either, but someone somewhere!
Well at least I don't have to split my money between the Powerball and Mega Millions now. Although I'd like to see the Mega Millions roll a few more times for fun, I'd like to be the winner this Tues. It doesn't really matter anyhow because the cash option is the same as the Powerball was, so my fingers are crossed!
So looking at this using the spreadsheet provided by the group running Powerball, the first payment of the annuity would be over $5.6 Million and go up from there. I estimate that if the person takes the cash option, they would have to earn more than 8.7% annually on the entire balance to exceed what the annuity would pay out.
Either way, it's a nice chunk of change for a single person (especially if they are single
).
I hope it wasn't won by a pool of workers where everyone didn't contribute because those that didn't contribute will think the jackpot is big enough to share regardless and will try to hinder the winners from collecting their money.
wow! 36 players matched 5 + 0 ! Is that some sort of record?