Powerball Jackpot Grows To $1.5B After No Ticket Matched Winning Combo

ILLINOIS — After no one managed to capture the Powerball jackpot on Wednesday night, the lottery winnings have swelled to a staggering $1.5 billion for the Saturday drawing, lottery officials have announced as the jackpot reaches near record proportions.

Players in Illinois need to pick up their tickets by 9 p.m. Saturday for a chance at the near-record lottery prize. In Wednesday’s Powerball drawing, the winning numbers were 02, 11, 22, 35, and 60, with a Powerball of 23.

Powerball drawings are held at 9 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.

Winners may choose to receive their prize as an annuity paid in 30 graduated payments over 29 years, or they may take a cash payout, which is estimated at $745.9 million for the next game. Nearly all winners choose cash.

The estimated $1.5 billion jackpot is the third-largest lottery prize in U.S. history and the second-largest in the history of the Powerball game.

The jackpot has gone unclaimed since Aug. 3, and the longer it goes without a winner, the closer it comes to the world record $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot in 2016.

The odds of winning are abysmal, about 1 in 292.2 million. The odds of winning any prize are better, 1 in 24.9. In Illinois, two people have cashed in since Powerball was introduced in 1992 with the most recent win coming in 2013 when Ted Baumgartner claimed a $50 million prize, which resulted in a $31.3 million payout in cash. Prior to that, Shim Partnership claimed a $37.5 million prize in 2010, which resulted in a $19.1 cash payout, according to the Powerball website.

A Powerball ticket costs $2. For an additional $1 per ticket, players can multiply non-jackpot prizes by up to 10 times with the Power Play feature. One caveat: The 10X multiplier is only available when the advertised jackpot annuity is $150 million or less.

To win the jackpot, a player must match all white balls in any order and the red Powerball number. Lottery officials say chances are higher when players don’t choose their own numbers. About 75 percent of winning tickets over the years were picked by a computer.

Tickets are sold in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. According to Powerball, more than half of all ticket sales remain in the jurisdiction where the ticket was sold.