Wednesday's Powerball Jackpot Passes $400M

Another enormous Powerball jackpot is up for grabs only 40 days after it climbed to $448 million at the beginning of August.

Wednesday's jackpot is estimated, as of Tuesday evening, to be north of $400 million because a jackpot winner wasn't pulled during Saturday night's drawing, which had an estimated $317 million jackpot. 

This makes Wednesday night's drawing the fourth largest Powerball drawing in history and the fifth largest lottery jackpot ever, with the title going to a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot in March 2012.

The largest Powerball jackpot, which ballooned to more than a half a billion dollars, was drawn on May 18. The $590.5 million jackpot was claimed by Gloria Mackenzie, an 84-year-old Florida resident who took a lump-sum, payout of $370 million.

A winner of Wednesday's jackpot would have the option of choosing annual payments or a lump sum payout of $223.6 million before taxes.

Saturday's winning numbers were 1-17-25-37-44, PB 20.

There were $1 million winners in California, Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

Powerball is played in 43 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. One ticket costs $2. 

Other important things you should know today:

• If you're not the gambling type, you also have a sure-fire chance at a $1 Boston Red Sox ticket tonight.
  
• There are probable cause hearings today for two alleged Robin Lane heroin dealers and a masked woman who attempted to rob her ex-boyfriend's home.
  
• In case you missed it, selectmen have approved a sewer line project for the west side of Hampton Beach, although it doesn't address all of the pipes and it doesn't resolve a decade-old unfinished project. 
• Lane Memorial Library is playing two free showings of the gritty movie "Mud" this week. The first is at 2 p.m. Wednesday, and the second is at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday.
  
• It's also World Water Monitoring Day.