No ticket matched all six Powerball numbers following the drawing for a record jackpot of nearly $950 million, lottery officials said early Sunday, boosting the expected payout for the next drawing to a whopping $1.3 billion.
The winning numbers — disclosed live on television and online Saturday night — were 16-19-32-34-57 and the Powerball number 13.
All six numbers must be correct to win, although the first five can be in any order. The odds to win the largest lottery prize in US history were one in 292.2 million.
Officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game, said they expected about 75% of the possible number combinations would have been bought for Saturday night's drawing.
Since November 4, the Powerball jackpot has grown from its $40 million starting point, as no one has won the jackpot. Such a huge jackpot was just what officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerballgame, hoped for last fall when they changed the odds of matching all the Powerball numbers, from about one in 175 million to one in 292.2 million. By making it harder to win a jackpot, the tougher odds made the ever larger prizes inevitable.
The US saw sales of $277 million on Friday alone, and sales of more than $400 million were expected Saturday, according to Gary Grief, the executive director of the Texas Lottery.
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The record jackpot lured an unprecedented frenzy of purchases. Anndrea Smith, 30, said Saturday that she already had spent more than she usually does on Powerball tickets.
"I bought four yesterday, and I usually never buy any," said Smith, manager of Bucky's gas station and convenience store in Omaha, Nebraska. She's not alone, saying the store sold "about $5,000 worth of tickets yesterday. Usually on a Friday, we might sell $1,200 worth."
The nextPowerball drawing is Wednesday.
Thinking about going in on a ticket or two to try your luck? Here's what you need to know.
The first thing you must do if you win the lottery: Lawyer up. (Read more here.)
What does the jackpot $$$ actually amount to if you win? Figure out the numbers here. (For reference, the $900 million jackpot would have amounted to $558 million if you took the cash payout in one lump sum.)
Should you even bother? We crunched the numbers here. (Short answer: Probably not.)
