One of the largest prizes in the lottery’s history, the Powerball jackpot rose to $400 million
No jackpot winners in last night’s powerball drawing(Sunday February 16, 2014). The pot will now grow to an estimate four hundred million for Wednesday’s drawing.
The jackpot, which has been building since late last year, soared by about $70 million after there were no winning tickets sold to claim a $330 million prize in a drawing on Saturday. The new jackpot’s lump-sum payout would be $227.8 million.
The next drawing is Wednesday, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game. If someone hits the jackpot that night, they would become the first Powerball winner of 2014. The Christmas Day drawing was the most recent to feature a jackpot winner.
Over the past two years, Powerball prizes have nearly doubled in size after ticket prices rose to $2 from $1 and California, the nation’s most populous state, joined the game.
Powerball is played in 43 states, Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Chances of winning the big prize, regardless of how many tickets a typical player buys, are one in 175 million, the lottery said.
In August, a Powerball jackpot worth $448 million was shared by three winning tickets held by a man in Ham Lake, Minn., a man in Monmouth Junction, N.J., and a group of 16 co-workers in Ocean County, N.J.
In the biggest haul, a single Powerball winner took home $590.5 million before taxes after purchasing a winning ticket in Florida in May 2013. The 84-year-old woman opted for a lump-sum payment of nearly $371 million.
Not every Powerball player is as lucky, however. Average jackpots are about $255 million, according to the Powerball website.