Powerball Lottery Zooms to $359 Million, Next Drawing Wednesday Night

The Powerball lottery has zoomed to $359 million (estimated cash value of $219 million) and the next drawing is coming up Wednesday night at 10:59 p.m. Each Powerball lottery ticket costs $2. Your odds of winning are 1 in 292,201,338.

In January, the largest Powerball jackpot in history, $1.6 billion was split three ways with winnings going to ticket holders in California, Florida and Tennessee. A Leesburg man came close to winning the whole shebang in July; he checked the winning numbers and discovered he’d matched the first five, missing only the Powerball number.

Powerball is played in 44 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The next drawing is Wednesday night at 10:59 p.m. You can see the winning numbers at the top of the Virginia Lottery Facebook page.

Feeling lucky? The Virginia Lottery has a Web page where you can plug in your ZIP code to find a location in your neighborhood where you can purchase a lottery ticket.

Feel like you're throwing your money away? Since 1999, all Virginia Lottery profits have been used for public education in the Commonwealth, for kindergarten through 12th grade.

PHOTO: Powerball logo courtesy of Powerball Lottery