Powerball Jackpot Hits $100 Million After Six Drawings With No Big Prize

The Powerball jackpot hit nine figures after a Saturday night drawing saw no big winners — for the sixth straight time. The last time anyone won the Powerball jackpot came on August 9, when one man in Colorado won a top prize of $90 million.

After that, the jackpot automatically reset to its minimum amount of $40 million, but in just three weeks, Powerball has entered $100 million territory for the fifth time this year. Wednesday’s drawing will carry a top jackpot prize of an even $100 million.

That amount, of course, would be before taxes — and would only be paid in full if a prospective winner chooses to take the prize in 30 annual payments, averaging $3,333,333 each.

So far, 2014 has seen eight Powerball jackpot winners. That’s just eight out of more than 1.2 billion tickets sold. Saturday’s drawing was the 70th Powerball drawing of the year.

There were 14,423,727 Powerball tickets sold for Saturday’s game, which of the four drawing this year where the jackpot has been exactly $90 million, is the highest total. Following the August 23 Powerball drawing, the nationwide lottery added a 44th state to its pool of participating states. Powerball tickets are also sold in Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Powerball has already gone on four runs with jackpots of $100 million or more so far in 2014. The longest of those started with the final drawing of 2013, on December 28 and went 15 drawings with no winner, finally scoring one winner on February 19 — when the jackpot had reached $425 million.

Then on March 26, Powerball saw a winnerless run start on March 26 that didn’t stop until the jackpot hit $148 million, a streak of nine drawings with no winner.

There’s no telling how high the jackpot could go this time. But lottery officials, and players as well, would be thrilled to see the winnerless streak continue until the jackpot penetrates high into the nine-figure range, which means vastly increased ticket sales as Powerball fever sweeps the country.

The February 19 $425 million drawing sold more than 91.5 million tickets.

Though there was no Powerball winner Saturday, one ticket sold in Florida matched the first five numbers, but not the separately drawn Power Ball number, to win a cool $1 million prize.

There were 443,687 Powerball tickets good for at least some cash Saturday. Was one of them yours? Check your August 30 Powerball ticket against these numbers, drawn at 10:59 pm in Tallahassee, Florida.

5 — 28 — 31 — 52 — 59 Power Ball 27

If Wednesday’s jackpot is won and paid out in a single payment, the total before taxes will be $61.7 million.