Powerball Jackpot Hits $100 Million As Numbers Produce No Wednesday Winner

The Powerball jackpot rose to $100 million after Wednesday’s numbers produced no big winner, meaning that both nationwide lottery games — Powerball and Mega Millions — are now carrying jackpots in the nine-figure range.

The last time both Powerball and Mega Millions were simultaneously in the nine-figure jackpot range was a two-week period in February. Starting with the February 7 Mega Millions drawing which carried a $107 million jackpot and ending with a $425 million Powerball jackpot won on February 19, both games saw nine-figure annuity jackpots. Now they are in that rarefied territory again.

The $100 million figure is the total amount that would be paid out over 30 years in annual payments averaging $3,333,333. The actual amount paid each increases each year. The first annual payment would be $1,783,010 before taxes. But the payment in the 30th year would total $5,560,586.

Taxes, of course, vary by state.

The cash value of Saturday’s Powerball jackpot to a winner who chooses to receive the prize money in one payment rather than 30 is $59.2 million before taxes.

Wednesday’s drawing was the sixth in a row with no jackpot winner since a Florida man won $148.8 million in the April 23 Powerball game.

With the jackpot pushing past the $100 million mark, the Powerball game is likely to see a pickup in ticket sales, which have been sluggish lately. The $90 million jackpot offered in Wednesday’s drawing attracted sales of 12,741,835 tickets, down by more than a million from the previous Saturday when the jackpot was $80 million.

In fact, none of the last six Powerball drawings since the April 23 jackpot winner have attracted more than 14 million ticket sales.

Wednesday’s Powerball numbers also yielded no second prize winners, while 18 ticket holder matched four of the first five numbers plus the Powerball number for the $10,000 third prize — though four of those ticket buyers paid the extra dollar for the Power Play option, making their tickets worth $30,000, and two others were purchased in California where under the state’s pari-mutuel payout system the third prize tickets were each worth $28,886.

In total, $2,742,009 was won in Wednesday’s Powerball drawing. Is any of that money yours? Check your ticket against these numbers:

7 — 33 — 39 — 52 — 55 Powerball 33

Powerball numbers are drawn every Wednesday an Saturday at 10:59 pm Eastern time in Tallahassee, Florida.