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.
nice, good luck everybody.
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.
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.
May the Odds and Evens Be With You!
Nice Jackpot!
what happens if it keeps rolling till after oct 3rd? then it gets harder to win and keeps on stacking for longer?
"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
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?
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.
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.
The Bigger the better, it will go 350,000,000.00 by Tuesday, if it rolls again who knows maybe 450/500. Could Be
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.
Dr1,
I couldn't agree with you more on the mirage aspect. What tickles me even more is the new PB odds and the way they are selling the higher payouts on the lower prizes but the grand prize they splash with huge numbers is now about to go up to 292 Million to 1. Yeup, that is what I am going to focus on, those 3rd and 4th place prize payouts !!!! wooo hooo
The current odds for the 2nd place PB million prize is 1 in 5 million so the new upcoming changes will effectively double those odds. Many folks will be looking at their own states lottery games with more reasonable (if I can call it that) odds.
This is probably the last jackpot that will have a reasonable shot at setting an all time record.
When the odds change, sales will fall, as they have done with the Megamillions. Probably it will take more than 25 rollovers, 3 months for the jackpot to get large again. This number of rollovers becomes increasingly unlikely. For example, .95 raised to the 25th power gives only a 27% probabilility of occurring, and given that the odds of rollovers can fall to 85% or less, well, large jackpots will not likely ever occur again, at least for several years.
Currently, jackpots at the 200M - 400M range (annuity) are not even generating a 100 million in sales.
However, if this jackpot is not won before the changeover, the worsened odds should make it possible for a rollover at even the 500 million level, again, probably for the last time we will ever see such a large jackpot.
Play trends and win! Pick the number 5 as your Powerball & then you only have to worry about getting the 5 white balls correct lol.
Took my butt across the Ohio river and bought two Indiana Powerball with Powerplay this morning. I understand that state has the highest Powerball jackpot winners of any of them. Then went to the good old Horseshoe Casino and came home with $300 in the positive!
Will probably play in Kentucky too; and have a few draws left on my Ohio ticket. Someone's gotta win, might as well be me.
My initials are PB (Paul Brno) the same as for Power Ball. and if I win I can't tell my wife because she'll go on a shopping spree! I worked with Sergio Martini who won 10.3 million dollars in Jan. 1996. We worked for the NYC Dept. of Sanitation & like 15 guys would give him a dollar to buy them a PB ticket. But he wouldn't give them their PB ticket until a day or two after the drawing. When he won, one guy didn't get a PB ticket. Martini kept working for a year & a half to get a 15 year pension & guys kept giving Martini money for PB tickets but now he would give them out a day or two before the PB drawing. Like he should have been doing all along. Martini kept looking for Marlboro miles in the garbage! He used to bring his garbage to the sanitation garage from his home in Brewster, NY & throw it in the back of a garbage truck because he didn't want to pay the town of Brewster $25.00 to pick up his garbage! You can't make this stuff up! And when his mother died in Italy he asked everyone for five bucks even though he was now a millionaire! He used to gamble on everything! They should make a movie of his life starring Joe Pesci!
Powerball odds of winning the jackpot would be 1 in 292,201,338. The size of the USA population is 300 million. Winning smaller prizes won't be enough to keep lottery players chasing an un winnable lottery jackpot. Smaller states games are not worth playing because of the lower playership. Take a look at the New York lotto and the Texas lotto, they keep on rolling because of low sales even though the jackpots are very high.
but will sneak out laters and by the light of the blood moon/eclipse and get a couple
best of luck to all who plunk down thar greenbacks and play
may one of us here at the LP campground,get thar respective wish
More interesting stuff about my former co-worker.Sergio Martini. There was a picture of Millionaire Martini throwing garbage in the back of a garbage truck. And if you worked with him he'd take you to a greasy spoon diner where the most expensive meal was about two bucks & he say, 'order anything you want' This was a one time deal. He started buying Marlboro miles from homeless people because he needed 25 thousand miles to get a pool table, which had to be taken apart because it wouldn't fit through his doorway! He used to drive his brother's taxi on weekends to get extra gambling money! after he won he bought his brother his taxi medallion. He paid off his mortgage because they were about to take away his house & rented it out. He bought a 750,000 dollar home in Brewster as an investment. He also bought a gas station & put his two sons to work. he told me that when he first moved his family to Brewster from Queens his two sons beat him up because they were made at him for taking them away from their friends. before he was a garbage man he worked at Silvercup making bread. Joe Pesci would win an academy award playing Sergio Martini!pp
Thats why I said "after the change".
I did notice that. I just wanted to clarify how drastic the odds were going up for the 2nd place prize.
Maybe if no one wins the next two drawings, and the changes kick in, we will see a billion dollar jackpot.
I'm good to go. Got my 2 Step, MM, Lotto, and PB, and....AoN tics today.
Did Todd write this article? It doesn't "sound" like him. I've read it three times, and every time, something pops out at me that seems "different".. Anyway, good luck to everyone!