Powerball Numbers Produce No Jackpot Winner, $90 Million At Stake Wednesday

The Powerball numbers drawn June 28 matched none of the 14 million-plus tickets sold for Saturday’s game, sending the jackpot closer to the $100 million mark as ticket sales remained slow compared to the pace set in 2013.

After 52 Powerball drawings last year, there had been four jackpot winners, the same number that this year has already seen in the identical number of drawings. But in 2013, the run-up to a May 18 jackpot of $590.5 million caused a sharp spike in Powerball ticket sales.

The May 18, 2013, drawing alone was responsible for massive numbers of ticket sales — 232,268,274 to be exact, a total that the Powerball game has not come close to equaling since. As a result, after 52 drawings last year, Powerball had already sold nearly 1.3 billion tickets.

This year’s total is just over 971.5 million after the same number of drawings.

While Saturday’s Powerball numbers failed to yield a jackpot winner, sending Wednesday’s jackpot to $90 million, there were two winners of the second prize. One ticket each from Pennsylvania and Rhode Island hit the first five numbers but not the final Power Ball number.

Both of those lucky ticket-buyers paid an extra dollar — $3 for a Powerball ticket rather than $2 — to activate the Power Play option. That means each ticket holder will walk home with $2 million rather than the standard $1 million second prize.

The previous Saturday, Powerball had three second-prize winning tickets. One of them was purchased in Indiana and the holder, or holders, of that ticket has now come forward. The $1 million prize, before taxes, was split among 18 workers at a Rolls Royce factory there, a group that regularly pools their resources to play the lottery twice each week.

The Rolls-Royce employees each win $55,555.55, leaving each one a $39,000 windfall after taxes were deducted.

This Saturday, even without a jackpot winner, there were $6,975,078 in Powerball prizes to be given away by the 43-state lottery game. That money is spread among 458,961 winning tickets. That total includes the 398,361 tickets that won just the minimum Powerball prize of $4 — or $8 with Power Play.

The minimum prize in $3 in California, which does not sell Power Play tickets.

Could one of those winning tickets be yours? Check your Powerball ticket against these numbers, drawn at 10:59 pm in Tallahassee, Florida:

8 — 12 — 34 — 43 — 56 Powerball 9

Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot will be worth $53.8 million to a winner who claims the jackpot in a single cash payment.