Powerball Jackpot Leaps to $76 Million!

Thursday, January 12, 2006 posted 10:18 AM EST

POWERBALL, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The jackpot in America's favorite lottery game continues to get bigger and bigger. Even though the grand prize was not awarded Wednesday evening, 423,615 players across the nation won a total of more than $4.2 million in prizes.

Because no one correctly matched all six numbers in Wednesday's drawing the jackpot will grow to an estimated $76 million!

The cash option for the Saturday, January 14th drawing will be an estimated $37.8 million.

The numbers drawn Wednesday night were 3, 6, 14, 17, 18 and the Powerball was 14. The Power Play multiplier was 2.

Eight very lucky winning tickets in Iowa (1), Indiana (1), Louisiana (1), Missouri (2), New Mexico (1), South Carolina (1), and Tennessee (1) matched all 5 white numbers for a $200,000 prize.

Twenty-four players matched 4 white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. Four additional players who won at this prize level also wisely purchased the Power Play and had the $10,000 winnings multiplied by 2 to $20,000!

More than 63,000 winning Powerball players multiplied their prizes by 2 Wednesday. They were able to do that by purchasing the Power Play option for one dollar. With Power Play you multiply your Powerball winnings from 2 to 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 $17.3 million in tickets between Sunday and Wednesday night.

The lotteries sold more than $2 billion in Powerball tickets in FY05. That translates into more than $600 million for worthwhile state projects.

Powerball is now played in 28 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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