A half a billion dollars — that’s how huge the Powerball lottery jackpot is Wednesday. The prize is $441 million for the player who purchased the winning ticket on Dec. 29.
The one-time cash payout for tonight’s Powerball drawing is $317.5 million, lottery officials said.
The winning Powerball numbers are drawn every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. Eastern time, with Powerball results usually posted within 5 minutes.
Ticket sales end at least one hour before the drawing in most states, but a state may halt sales earlier, such as Illinois, which stops sales three hours before the drawing. In Maryland and New Jersey, ticket sales end at 9:59 p.m.; in Virginia, they close at 10 p.m. Check with your state lottery for the cut-off time.
The winning Powerball numbers for Wednesday, Dec. 29, are: 02, 06, 09, 33, 39 and the Powerball of 11.
The largest Powerball jackpot in history was $1.586 billion, which was split by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee in January 2016.
To win the Powerball jackpot, a player must match all five white balls in any order and the red Powerball number. The odds of picking the correct Powerball grand prize numbers are one in 292,201,338, which doesn’t change even if more players buy tickets when the jackpot is enormous.
You have a better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot if you let the computer select your numbers, according to lottery officials. About 75 percent of winning tickets over the years had numbers picked by a computer.
Powerball tickets cost $2 each. Find locations where you can buy your Powerball tickets here.Lottery officials have advice for whoever has the winning numbers:
These are the five largest Powerball jackpots in the game’s history:
Winners can choose to either have the full jackpot amount paid out in 30 installments over 29 years, or winners can take one lump sum payment that is smaller than the actual total.
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