Powerball Jackpot Rises to $157 Million

Even though the grand prize was not hit Wednesday evening, Powerball paid off in big ways. Three lucky tickets from Pennsylvania (1) and South Carolina (2) each won $800,000 with the Power Play option! In addition, five other lucky tickets won $200,000 for matching 5 white ball numbers in the states of Arizona (1), Minnesota (1), Missouri (1), North Carolina (1), and South Dakota (1).

The jackpot for the Saturday, September 16th drawing will be $157 million with the cash option at $73.9 million.

The numbers drawn Wednesday evening were 15, 19, 26, 45, 47, and the Powerball was 3. The Power Play multiplier was 4.

Forty-two tickets matched 4 white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. Four additional players of that prize level wisely purchased the Power Play and had their prize multiplied by 4 for a $40,000 cash win! A total of 756,592 players across the nation won more than $9.1 million in prizes playing America's favorite game.

More than 128,000 winning Powerball players multiplied their prize by 4 Wednesday. They were able to do that by purchasing the Power Play option for $1. With Power Play you multiply your Powerball winnings from 2-5 times, except for the jackpot. At the beginning of each drawing a wheel is spun to select that night's multiplier.

Players should carefully check their tickets after every draw. Even if there are no jackpot winners there are always tens of thousands of winners at other prize levels.

Players purchased more than $31.2 million in tickets between Sunday and Wednesday night.

The lotteries sold $2.8 billion in Powerball tickets in fiscal year 2006. That translates into over $800 million for worthwhile state projects.

Powerball is now played in 29 states, the District of Col

2006-09-14