By Todd Northrop
July continues to be an exciting month for lottery fans dreaming of mega jackpot dollars.
No sooner was Friday's $540 million Mega Millions jackpot won than Powerball became perfectly positioned to take the spotlight with a big rollover Saturday night.
After nobody won Powerball's $288 million jackpot Saturday, the new jackpot for Wednesday, July 13 was estimated at $311 million.
More exciting is the lump-sum cash value of $221.4 million, which is the 16th-largest in U.S. lottery history. The complete top-25 list of United States lottery jackpot cash values can be found at the end of this article.
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.
Wednesday's grand prize is the result of 18 consecutive draws without a winner. The run-up started as a $40 million prize on May 11.
The winning numbers for Saturday, July 9, 2016 were 10, 28, 32, 61, and 64, with Powerball number 12. The Power Play number was 3.
Although nobody won the jackpot Saturday night, 3 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a second-prize win: 1 from California, 1 from Massachusetts, and 1 from New Jersey.
The California second-prize winner will be awarded $246,261, while the tickets from Massachusetts and New Jersey will get $1 million each. 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.
None of the winning second-prize tickets were purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1 per play. If they had, their prize would have been automatically doubled to $2,000,000.
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.
27 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $50,000. Of those tickets, 5 were purchased with the Power Play option, increasing the prize to $150,000.
Surprisingly there were no winners of the 4+1 prize in California, where the prize pool for the 4+1 winners was $63,043 this drawing. A single winner would have taken the complete prize pool, or the prize pool would have been split if there were multiple winners.
Following the Saturday drawing, the Powerball annuity jackpot estimate was raised $23 million from its previous amount of $288 million. The cash value was raised by $20 million from its previous amount of $201.4 million.
Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the Powerball annuity jackpot is suffering from the same difficulties that Mega Millions faced during its epic 35-drawing run that ended Friday. Sagging interest rates due to the poor economy are depressing the rate of return on invested lottery cash, causing the annuity jackpot to be raised much slower than it normally would.
While lottery fans look for big cash values to play, casual players who watch the advertised annuity value might not be as tempted to play. It's a difficult spiral for lottery marketing to break through, and tends to depress ticket sales a bit. If interest rates rebound, the cycle becomes easier to break.
The next Powerball drawing will take place Wednesday night at 10:59 pm Eastern Time.
When a Powerball ticket is purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1 per ticket, the second prize amount doubles to $2,000,000, and all other non-jackpot prizes are multiplied by the Power Play number randomly drawn that evening.
A complete list of prizes available for matching various numbers 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.
Top 25 cash value jackpots
Wednesday's Powerball jackpot has the 16th-largest lump-sum cash value of any lottery jackpot in US lottery history. The list of the top 25 jackpot cash values can be found below, along with the state(s) in which each jackpot was won.
- Powerball: $983.5 million cash, Jan. 13, 2016 ($1.5864 billion annuity) - California, Florida, Tennessee
- Mega Millions: $471 million cash, Mar. 30, 2012 ($656 million annuity) - Illinois, Kansas, Maryland
- Powerball: $384.7 million cash, Nov. 28, 2012 ($587.5 million annuity) - Arizona, Missouri
- Powerball: $381.1 million cash, Feb. 11, 2015 ($564.1 million annuity) - North Carolina, Puerto Rico, Texas
- Mega Millions: $380 million cash, Jul. 8, 2016 ($540 million annuity) - Indiana
- Powerball: $370.9 million cash, May 18, 2013 ($590.5 million annuity) - Florida
- Mega Millions: $347.6 million cash, Dec. 17, 2013 ($636 million annuity) - California, Georgia
- Powerball: $284 million cash, May 7, 2016 ($429.6 million annuity) - New Jersey
- Powerball: $258.2 million cash, Aug. 7, 2013 ($448.4 million annuity) - Minnesota, New Jersey (2)
- Mega Millions: $240 million cash, Jan. 4, 2011 ($380 million annuity) - Idaho, Washington
- Mega Millions: $233.1 million cash, Mar. 6, 2007 ($390 million annuity) - Georgia, New Jersey
- Mega Millions: $230.9 million cash, Mar. 18, 2014 ($414 million annuity) - Florida, Maryland
- Powerball: $227.8 million cash, Feb. 19, 2014 ($425.3 million annuity) - California
- Powerball: $224.7 million cash, Aug. 15, 2012 ($337 million annuity) - Michigan
- Powerball: $223.3 million cash, Sep. 18, 2013 ($399.4 million annuity) - South Carolina
- Powerball: $221.4 million cash, Jul. 13, 2016 ($311 million annuity) - Preliminary estimate, not won yet
- Mega Millions: $214 million cash, Aug. 28, 2009 ($336 million annuity) - California, New York
- Powerball: $211 million cash, Mar. 23, 2013 ($338.3 million annuity) - New Jersey
- Powerball: $210 million cash, Feb. 11, 2012 ($336.4 million annuity) - Rhode Island
- Mega Millions: $202.9 million cash, Mar. 25, 2011 ($319 million annuity) - New York
- Mega Millions: $197.5 million cash, Nov. 4, 2014 ($321 million annuity) - New York
- Powerball: $197.4 million cash, Sep. 30, 2015 ($310.5 million annuity) - Michigan
- Mega Millions: $194.4 million cash, Aug. 31, 2007 ($330 million annuity) - Maryland, New Jersey, Texas, Virginia
- Powerball: $191.9 million cash, Mar. 2, 2016 ($291.4 million annuity) - Florida
- Mega Millions: $185 million cash, Nov. 15, 2005 ($315 million annuity) - California
The number of jackpot cash values in the top 25, by lottery game, are:
- Powerball: 14
- Mega Millions: 11
Very, very shocking that nobody won. I thought for sure it would have been way too easy for someone out there.
Good luck to all players!
Hahahaha Todd fueling excitement among masses haha
I'm going to play pb just like I played mm, no frenzy, no excitement. Just play to be in the game.
I quit this game when the upped the matrix last Oct.
did play 1 line back when it went over 1B
...maybe buy another when that happens again !
I'm ready!
Yeah Todd!
I remember the days when MM was the best game. But now PB is the best. It recovers more quickly and has more participants by state or territory!
As noted in his article, Todd wrote: "Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the Powerball annuity jackpot is suffering from the same difficulties that Mega Millions faced during its epic 35-drawing run that ended Friday. Sagging interest rates due to the poor economy are depressing the rate of return on invested lottery cash, causing the annuity jackpot to be raised much slower than it normally would."
Yes Todd we have noticed that. The ratio of cash to annuity is now up to 71.18971%
I remember when that ratio used to be somewhere around 57%, but because of the interest rates being so low, it is now up over 71%
I bought a ticket for the last draw because the cash value had just topped $200 million. I will continue to purchase one pick until the cash value exceeds $300 million then I'll most likely buy 2 or 3 picks. Odds are simply too insane to waste anything more than that.
just not worth it
It's a good thing you're not a used car salesperson. 100% chance????
"Since Mega Millions was just won, there's a 100% chance Powerball will be won tonight."
Nothing in life is 100% except for 3 things.
Being born
, paying taxes 
and dying 
.
Here we go!
Come on guys!
The point is to WIN!
I prefer to win something with sagging interest rates than NOTHING with sagging interest rates.
Be IN IT to WIN IT!
I think that these sagging interest rates may push a young winner into choosing the lump sum instead of the annuity. Most twenty-year-old winners are not ready for the $211 million. I hope they get professionals on their side. The same goes for all the winners.
I will now share a Dave Ramsey quote,"Some people are lighthouses when they warn of rocks ahead". These past winners who blew through their winnings are warning all of us about the rocks ahead. I hope that any Lottery Post winner will not have a shipwreck.
May fortune smile upon us all.