Powerball Is $1.3 Billion: No $949.8 Million Powerball Winners — Powerball Billboards Must Add ‘$1.3 Billion’ Wording

The Powerball fever is expected to continue now that the Powerball jackpot has grown to an estimated $1.3 billion. According to the official Powerball website, the $1.3 billion estimated Powerball jackpot comes with a $806 million cash value for those who choose the cash option and not the annuity payments.

“There were no jackpot winners for Saturday’s drawing…

The next drawing is will be Wednesday, January 13, 2016.”

The winning numbers from the estimated $949.8 million Powerball jackpot on January 9 may have produced more than 18 million winners, but none of those winners took home the biggest payout. As a result, the estimated $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot will likely grow past $1.3 billion once Wednesday rolls around. With record numbers of Powerball ticket sales, the $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot could grow to untold amounts.

Instead of any winners for the $949.8 million Powerball jackpot, two of those Powerball winners matched 5 numbers, giving the Connecticut and Texas people $2 million for the “Match 5 Winners Power Play,” according to the official Powerball website.

Powerball also explains in their “9 Ways To Win” section that even though the “Power Play” multiplier was 3x, that doesn’t mean those Power Play Match 5 winners received $3 million — no, they received the capped off $2 million, according to the Powerball chart. As far as Match 5 Winners who won $1 million and might be kicking themselves for not spending a few more dollars for the Power Play option, they hail from 14 different states. Include Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia among the states with the new $1 million Powerball winners.

One thing that the $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot means is that some billboards must change to accommodate the $1.3 billion wording. While the $1.3 numerical part should not be a problem, the “billion” wording will be for some Powerball billboards. While some billboards are totally computerized when it comes to the “million” versus “billion” wording, and allow for an easy switch from $900 million to $1.3 billion, other billboards will have to change to reflect the $1.3 billion jackpot.

Instead of $1.3 billion, some of the Powerball signs are reflecting $999 million, as seen below.

The #powerball jackpot is now too big for the billboard signs. How much? @TODAYshow now! pic.twitter.com/SlygduonLI

— Kerry Sanders (@KerryNBC) January 10, 2016

For example, the above photo showing a billboard advertising the $900 million Powerball jackpot on Saturday, January 9, in Lincoln, Nebraska, has the “million” in a non-computerized format. Billboards reflecting that “million” wording must change to reflect the $1.3 billion, which will take more work than other billboards, which can easily reflect the $1.3 billion wording all in the digital display, because the “billion” will be part of the computerized numbering.

With Powerball advertisers not having the forethought to believe that some day a $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot could be a possibility, expect to see plenty of billboards being manually changed to reflect the $1.3 billion total this week where necessary.

The Powerball estimated $1.3 billion jackpot, as reported by ABC News, means that the Powerball has grown from the record set on Saturday evening of $949.8 million to $1.3 billion. It was early Sunday when the Powerball estimated $1.3 billion jackpot was announced by lottery officials.

“The winning numbers were 16, 19, 32, 34, 57, and a Powerball of 13. To win the jackpot, all six numbers must be correct. The first five can be in any order, but the sixth must be the Powerball number.”

Powerball has become a top trending item on Twitter, with at least 754,000 tweets about the Powerball growing to $1.3 billion coming into the social media network. Expect $1.3 billion to begin trending on Twitter has well, just like $900 million became a trending Twitter topic previously. That was prior to the $949.8 million estimate coming in from Powerball.

https://twitter.com/LAthertonPhoto/status/686093186213662720

On Twitter, folks are joking about the fact that the $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot means the wording “$1.3 billion” can’t fit on some Powerball signs. As such, they are snapping photos of Powerball billboards with $999 million on them instead of $1.3 billion.

[Photo by AP Photo/Nati Harnik]