1 winning ticket from Minnesota, 2 from New Jersey

Final jackpot total of $448.4 million is fourth-largest ever in USA

By Todd Northrop

Wednesday's massive Powerball jackpot that generated millions of ticket sales this week has been won by three tickets, which will evenly split the $448.4 million final tally.

The $448.4 million Powerball jackpot, which is the fourth-largest of any lottery game in history, started as a $40 million prize on June 26, 2013, and continued accumulating prize money for 13 consecutive drawings, until it was finally won Wednesday.

Early Sunday morning the game's organizer estimated Wednesday's jackpot at $400 million, but by Tuesday afternoon that estimate was raised to $425 million on strong sales.  By Wednesday evening after all the ticket sales were counted, the actual jackpot amount stood at $448.4 million — the fourth-highest recorded by any lottery game in history, and the third-largest Powerball jackpot ever.

The final lump-sum cash value of the jackpot is $258.2 million, ranking as the fourth-largest jackpot cash value ever.

The Powerball winning numbers for Wednesday, August 7, 2013, were 5, 25, 30, 58, and 59, with Powerball number 32.

The three big winners undoubtedly will get very little sleep Wednesday night, as they try to process winning such a large jackpot.

Or maybe a pool of winners will claim one or more of the tickets, making a lot more incredibly happy and bewildered insomniacs Wednesday night.

The New Jersey winning tickets were sold at the Super Stop n Shop, located at 24 Summerfield Blvd. & Rt. 522, South Brunswick (Middlesex country), and Acme Markets #7858, located at 425 Route 9 South, Little Egg Harbor (Ocean County).

The retailer that sold the Minnesota winning ticket will be published once it's announced by the Minnesota Lottery.

The 3 jackpot winners are not the only ones to bring home a whole lotta loot Wednesday night.

In addition to the jackpot winners, a whopping 38 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1,000,000 prize: 9 from California, 2 from Colorado, 1 from Connecticut, 4 from Florida, 3 from Georgia, 2 from Illinois, 1 from Kansas, 1 from Louisiana, 1 from Maryland, 1 from Missouri, 1 from Nebraska, 3 from New York, 1 from Oklahoma, 1 from Oregon, 1 from Pennsylvania, 1 from Tennessee, 4 from Texas, and 1 from Virginia.

The 9 California second-prize winners will each be awarded $289,341, 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, only four of the tickets — both tickets sold in Colorado, the ticket sold in Oklahoma, and one of the tickets sold in Texas — were purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1.  Because they purchased the Power Play, those four 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.

192 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000.  Of those tickets, 12 were purchased with the Power Play option, increasing the prize to $40,000, and 21 of the tickets were sold in California, where the prize was worth $9,847 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.