Powerball continued its 30th birthday week Wednesday night with a $372.8 million jackpot. That number is going up to an estimated $400 million for Saturday's drawing after no tickets sold had all the winning numbers.
But one person is $2 million richer -- before taxes, that is.
The winning numbers Wednesday were 20-30-45-55-56 and the Powerball was 14. The Power Play was 2x.
One $2 million ticket was sold in New Jersey, matching all five white numbers plus the Power Play. Nobody had a $1 million ticket.
Winning tickets have been sold for two jackpots this year prior to Wednesday's drawing. Two tickets sold in California and Wisconsin shared $632.6 million in January and one ticket in Connecticut won $185.3 million.
Tuesday marked 30 years since the first tickets for Powerball were sold. Friday will be the 30th anniversary of the first drawing. Powerball said the game has given out 1.75 billion prizes since its launch in 1992, including:
- 393 jackpot winning tickets
- 470 tickets winning $2 million
- 2,424 tickets winning $1 million
- $25 billion in jackpots
- $23 billion in lower-tier cash prizes
- Raised $27 billion to help fund public services and programs
The largest Powerball jackpot in history, which is also the largest U.S. lottery jackpot ever, was $1.586 billion split between three tickets in California, Florida and Tennessee in 2016.
Indiana has the most jackpot-winning tickets sold with 39. Maine, Mississippi, North Dakota, Vermont, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Wyoming have never had a jackpot-winning ticket sold.
The overall odds of winning any Powerball prize are 1 in 24.9. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.
Powerball is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Drawings are held on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Friday's drawing for Mega Millions, the other big multi-state lottery, is estimated at $22 million.
