$301 MILLION: Huge Powerball jackpot on tap for this week

Sep 27, 2015, 8:12 am (66 comments)

Powerball

By Todd Northrop

This week Powerball will be the hot ticket, featuring a jackpot larger than any other United States lottery drawing in more than seven months.

The new high-water mark of $301 million for the current Powerball jackpot was achieved after no winning tickets were sold for Saturday night's $267 million grand prize.

The lump-sum cash payout value of Saturday's Powerball jackpot is $191.4 million — the 19th-largest ever recorded in United States lottery history.

Players looking to calculate what they would receive after the initial federal and state tax withholdings can find it all pre-calculated for each Powerball jurisdiction on the Jackpot Analysis page at USA Mega, a web site devoted to the Powerball and Mega Millions multi-state lottery games.

The largest Powerball jackpot ever awarded was on May 18, 2013, when Gloria C. MacKenzie of Zephyrhills, Florida, held the solitary winning ticket for a grand prize worth nearly $600 million (see Winner of record $590.5 million Powerball lottery jackpot announced, Lottery Post, June 5, 2013).

The mammoth prize is the result of 16 consecutive draws without a winner.  The run-up started as a $40 million prize on Aug. 5.

The winning numbers for Saturday, September 26, 2015 were 23, 31, 42, 50, and 57, with Powerball number 5.  The Power Play number was 3.

Even though nobody won the jackpot Wednesday, 8 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1,000,000 prize: 1 from Florida, 1 from Massachusetts, 2 from Missouri, 1 from New Jersey, 1 from New York, 1 from Oklahoma, and 1 from Virginia.

None of the second-prize winners purchased the Power Play option.  If they had, their second-prize win would have been automatically doubled 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.  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.

47 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000.  Of those tickets, 7 were purchased with the Power Play option, increasing the prize to $20,000, and 7 of the tickets were sold in California, where the prize was worth $8,066 this drawing.

Following the Wednesday drawing, the Powerball annuity jackpot estimate was raised $34 million from its previous amount of $267 million. The cash value was raised by $22.4 million from its previous amount of $169 million.

The next Powerball drawing will take place Wednesday day night at 10:59 pm Eastern Time.

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.

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.

Lottery Post Staff

Comments

sully16's avatarsully16

nice, good luck everybody. Hyper

diablo1714

Yawn, who cares. Most people are so poor that the default jackpot might as well be 100 million. If your living paycheck to paycheck what is the difference between 20 million and 100 million.

Todd's avatarTodd

Quote: Originally posted by diablo1714 on Sep 27, 2015

Yawn, who cares. Most people are so poor that the default jackpot might as well be 100 million. If your living paycheck to paycheck what is the difference between 20 million and 100 million.

Isn't it great that state lotteries offer lots of smaller in-state games in addition to the huge multi-state games?  That way people who "yawn" at $300 million jackpots have lots of "exciting" smaller options to play.

JADELottery's avatarJADELottery

Quote: Originally posted by Todd on Sep 27, 2015

Isn't it great that state lotteries offer lots of smaller in-state games in addition to the huge multi-state games?  That way people who "yawn" at $300 million jackpots have lots of "exciting" smaller options to play.

Agreed.

We been on an All or Nothing kick here in MN for the past few weeks.

Been coming up with all kinds of interesting methods and theories of play.

zephbe's avatarzephbe

Quote: Originally posted by JADELottery on Sep 27, 2015

Agreed.

We been on an All or Nothing kick here in MN for the past few weeks.

Been coming up with all kinds of interesting methods and theories of play.

I'm trying to win Palmetto Cash 5 myself.  A little 5/38 game but it would help me.

Raven62's avatarRaven62

May the Odds and Evens Be With You!

dpoly1's avatardpoly1

Nice Jackpot!

 

Cool

savagegoose's avatarsavagegoose

what happens if it  keeps rolling till after oct 3rd? then it gets harder to win and keeps on stacking for longer?

THRIFTY's avatarTHRIFTY

Quote: Originally posted by Todd on Sep 27, 2015

Isn't it great that state lotteries offer lots of smaller in-state games in addition to the huge multi-state games?  That way people who "yawn" at $300 million jackpots have lots of "exciting" smaller options to play.

"You may want to think twice before plunking down even a paltry $2 to play Powerball this coming October, the 36-state lottery. LoHud.com reports that the odds of winning the top prize – historically anywhere from $2 million to $600 million -- will jump from 1 in 175,223,510 to 1 in 292,201,338." http://finance.yahoo.com/news/powerball-rules-harder-win-big-000500142.html

Romancandle's avatarRomancandle

Wow it's been seven months since the last big one...

The pump has been primed for the new matrix change roll out... If this keeps rolling thru that change could we see the first billion $ jackpot?

Todd's avatarTodd

Quote: Originally posted by THRIFTY on Sep 27, 2015

"You may want to think twice before plunking down even a paltry $2 to play Powerball this coming October, the 36-state lottery. LoHud.com reports that the odds of winning the top prize – historically anywhere from $2 million to $600 million -- will jump from 1 in 175,223,510 to 1 in 292,201,338." http://finance.yahoo.com/news/powerball-rules-harder-win-big-000500142.html

I have no idea what that has to do with my comment about smaller in-state games. 

And we all know that the Powerball odds will be getting harder for the top prize — although easier to win a lower-tier prize — because Lottery Post ran the story I wrote back in July:  https://www.lotterypost.com/news/291521.  That Yahoo story you linked is pretty much just a fluff-piece, and as I pointed out in July, it contains bad data that was obtained from a poor website.

rcbbuckeye's avatarrcbbuckeye

I've said it before, but even second prize is life changing. After the change, it will be 1 in 11+ million to win a million dollars. My state lotto is 1 in 25+ million. Granted, that jackpot is over 20 million right now, but it starts at 5 million annuity, or around 3.5 million cash.

$2 is not that much money for a shot at 1 million dollars, or 300 million.

easygoing123go

The Bigger the better, it will go 350,000,000.00 by Tuesday, if it rolls again who knows maybe 450/500. Could Be

Drenick1's avatarDrenick1

Quote: Originally posted by diablo1714 on Sep 27, 2015

Yawn, who cares. Most people are so poor that the default jackpot might as well be 100 million. If your living paycheck to paycheck what is the difference between 20 million and 100 million.

The $100 million you are yawning about is actually the true take home amount that a single winner in a state like NY or NJ  would net. A $301 million jackpot is nothing more than a fictitious mirage and the true lump sum cash value is actually about one third of an advertised jackpot annuity.

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