PERSONAL FINANCE
POWERBALL LOTTERY JACKPOT AT $1.5B; WINNING NUMBERS
DRAWING WEDNESDAY
No one matched all six Powerball numbers Saturday night, leading to the astronomical prize.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016 10:52AM
Lottery officials say the estimated $1.5 billion prize is not just the largest in the United States, but in the world. A lump-sum cash payment of the winnings would net a single winner $930 million before taxes.
"Biggest jackpot in the history of the world. Absolutely confirmed," Texas Lottery executive director Gary Grief said.
BREAKING: #Powerball jackpot just increased again to $1.5 BILLION! Cash value is $930 MILLION! #Texas #TexasLottery pic.twitter.com/PTqVtk9u0x
— Texas Lottery (@TexasLottery) January 12, 2016
Meet the lucky winners of the largest lottery jackpots in U.S. history
A look at the 10 highest US lottery jackpots
Not that there aren't large jackpots elsewhere. Spain's massively popular Christmas lottery, known as "El Gordo," is ranked as the world's richest, though it doles out a single jackpot among millions of prizes, instead of one large jackpot like the Powerball. El Gordo last month showered 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) across the country.
As for the U.S., here's a look at the 10 previous highest jackpots and where the winners were from:
1. $656.0 million, Mega Millions, March 30, 2012 (three tickets from Kansas, Illinois and Maryland)
2. $636 million, Mega Millions, Dec. 17, 2013, (two tickets, from California and Georgia)
3. $590.5 million, Powerball, May 18, 2013 (one ticket from Florida)
4. $587.5 million, Powerball, Nov. 28, 2012 (two tickets from Arizona and Missouri)
5. $564.1 million, Powerball, Feb. 11, 2015 (three tickets, from North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Texas)
6. $448.4 million, Powerball, Aug. 7, 2013, (three tickets, one from Minnesota and two from New Jersey)
7. $425.3 million, Powerball, Feb. 19, 2014 (one ticket from California)
8. $414 million, Mega Millions, March 18, 2014, (two tickets from Florida and Maryland)
9. $399.4 million, Powerball, Sept. 18, 2013, (one ticket from South Carolina)
10. $390.0 million, Mega Millions, March 6, 2007 (two tickets from Georgia and New Jersey)
The jackpot is so big that billboards around the country have to advertise the price as $999 million because they're not built to show billions. The lottery computers will handle the decimal point without a problem.
No one matched all six Powerball numbers Saturday night, leading to the astronomical prize. And that is all but certain to grow before the next drawing Wednesday, according to lottery officials.
"We've never been at these levels," said Grief, whose state lottery is part of the Multi-State Lottery Association that runs Powerball.
The odds to win are one in 292.2 million. Seventy-five percent of all the possible combinations were purchased before Saturday's drawing, Grief said, and he expects that enough tickets will be sold to cover about 80 percent by Wednesday. About 95 percent of Powerball tickets have computer-generated numbers.
"I've been in the industry over 20 years, and I've seen jackpots hit when we hardly have any of the potential numbers covered - like 5 percent of the possible combinations covered. And I've seen other jackpots when we've had 95 percent of the combinations covered and it rolls," Grief said.
The jackpot has ballooned since its Nov. 4 starting point of $40 million and spurred huge ticket sales.
In Omaha, Les Wheeler said he probably overdid it by buying $30 worth of tickets for Saturday's drawing with a few friends, but they plan to do the same for this next jackpot.
"I didn't expect to win, but I had big dreams," said Wheeler, 53. He said a new home in another state away from Omaha's 16-degree temperatures were at the top of his wish list.
Saturday's winning numbers - 16-19-32-34-57 and Powerball number of 13 - did gain some people a little wealth: 25 tickets won $1 million by matching five numbers, and three other tickets won $2 million because they paid extra to multiply smaller prizes.
Darryl Collins, of Phoenix, and his husband each won $24 from the 70 Powerball tickets they bought. They plan to use that money toward buying more tickets for the new, higher jackpot. Collins said it was a shock that nobody won.
"It was like only 500 people who missed it by one number," Collins said. "It shows you how hard it is to win."
The 55-year-old real estate agent said he and his husband would definitely share the wealth.
"I would give a lot of it to family and friends," Collins said. "Who needs that much money?"
Michael Montecelo, a security guard in San Francisco's financial district, said he spent $20 on Powerball tickets and hasn't yet checked if he won anything. He said he will buy another $20 worth of tickets even if thinking about winning more than a billion dollars scares him a bit.
"I think I would go into a state of anxiety, but it would be a good anxiety," he said, smiling.
Montecelo, 50, said he would retire and donate some of that money and work on administering the rest.
"I would have to open an office and get a team of experts. I think my job would be to keep tabs on that money," he said. "That would be a full-time job."
The record jackpot lured an unprecedented frenzy of purchases. Between Jan. 6 and Saturday's drawings, more than $900 million in Powerball tickets were sold.
Officials expect similar sales before the next drawing, but Grief said it's hard to predict how excitement about the record jackpot will boost sales.
"It's exponentially greater than any sales that any of the states involved have ever seen," he said.
Here are more details about the big lottery payoff.
CHOOSING YOUR NUMBERS
Looking for ideas on how to choose the lucky numbers? Previous winners have recommended letting a computer decide your numbers rather than choosing significant digits based on birthdays or anniversaries. If you play the lottery often, it's also suggested that you stick with the same combination every time you play. Read more tips from ABC News.
PAYMENT OPTIONS
The prize is based on an annuity, which would pay out the money over 29 years. Or you can take the lump sum cash payment at once, but you'd have to pay the tax.
THE ODDS? NOT GOOD.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 : 292,201,338. For some comparison, your chance of being struck by lightning in a year is about one in 960,000. But as lottery officials often note, you have no chance of winning if you don't buy a ticket.
POOLING YOUR MONEY
Some players feel they increase their odds of winning by pooling their money with co-workers, with a promise to split the winnings. Joining with colleagues and friends can increase the fun of playing, but the odds of winning are so tiny that adding 50 or 100 chances doesn't matter much. Lottery officials recommend that if people pool their money, they put down rules in writing for splitting the prize, as it's easy for misunderstandings to crop up when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.
http://abc7chicago.com/finance/powerball-lottery-jackpot-at-$15b;-winning-numbers-drawing-wednesday/1155977/
