Final jackpot total of $564.1 million is fifth-largest ever in USA
By Todd Northrop
Three Powerball lottery tickets sold in North Carolina, Puerto Rico, and Texas matched all the winning numbers Wednesday night to share a $564.1 million jackpot.
The winning numbers in the Wed., Feb. 11, 2015, drawing were 11, 13, 25, 39, and 54, with Powerball number 19. The Power Play number was 3.
The $564.1 million Powerball jackpot, which is the fifth-largest of any lottery game in history, started as a $40 million prize on December 3, 2014, and continued accumulating prize money for 20 consecutive drawings, until it was finally won Wednesday night.
Early Sunday morning, around 5:25 am Eastern Time, USA Mega announced the new Powerball jackpot of $450 million after nobody won in the Saturday evening drawing. Then, on Tuesday afternoon lottery officials raised the jackpot estimate to $485 million on bigger-than-expected sales.
Less than 24 hours later, the jackpot estimate for Wednesday's Powerball drawing was raised yet again to $500 million, with a lump-sum cash option of $337.8 million. By draw-time the jackpot had swelled to a jaw-dropping $564.1 million.
In addition to the big jackpot winners, 34 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1,000,000 prize: 2 from Arizona, 3 from California, 2 from Florida, 1 from Illinois, 1 from Kansas, 1 from Louisiana, 2 from Maryland, 3 from Missouri, 1 from New Hampshire, 1 from New Jersey, 4 from New York, 2 from North Carolina, 3 from Ohio, 2 from Pennsylvania, 3 from Texas, 2 from Washington, and 1 from Wisconsin.
The 3 California second-prize winners will each be awarded $1,428,692, 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.
Out of the 34 second-prize tickets, only one of the tickets sold in Pennsylvania was purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1, automatically doubling that prize to $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.
318 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. Of those tickets, 35 were purchased with the Power Play option, increasing the prize to $30,000, and 33 of the tickets were sold in California, where the prize was worth $10,314 this drawing.
The jackpot for the Saturday Powerball drawing is reset to $40 million.
Powerball is now played in 44 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2 each.
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.
Someone just become the King or Queen of Puerto Rico.
Awesome!
Well all 3 winners should have a very nice valentines day!
Texas winner from Princeton Texas, east of McKinney, purchased at the Appletree Food Mart. Congrats to the winner. - NOT A QUICK PICK! <-- for you numbers people.
3 2nd prizes from Texas, all quick picks:
Bridgewood Chevron, 1051 Bridgewood, Ft Worth
Star Stop, 2211 N Freeway, Houston
RaceTrac, 220 W Euless Blvd, Euless
Data compliments of the Texas Lottery website.
Seems to me the last 2nd prize in Texas was in Euless.
Congrats to the winners!!
Texas represent! Yee Hawww!!
Okay. Back to Mega Millions then.
Couldn't sleep so got up to get some food. Checked the sites, knew I wouldn't be that Texas winner. Congrats to the winners and best wishes.
Maybe that winner over in the DFW area will take some interest off me if I win MM this Saturday (though many will be more interested in the Puerto Rican win, I imagine).
All those Million dollar prizes is worth playing a game.That should be on all games,,who needs all that money,I guess Im not greedy.Just a little money will help so many.
Congratulations to the winners. That was a fast one by Puerto Rico.
Congrats to the Big 3.
I trust given the 3 states that won this puts an end to the theory that only certain states win.
That money is going to buy a lot of pina coladas.
Only 412,000 tickets were sold in P.R. compared to over $5 million in NC and over 12 million in Texas.
I predicted this would be another boring multiple winner jackpot and not roll or have one winner. Guess at least three people will be glad they paid their "stupid tax".
Sorry to say it wasn't me, but I am very glad that it was a winner from TX.
but I have that weird itch that tells me and those conspiracy nutz will still find reason to bch and moan