Powerball Jackpot Jumps to $78 Million

Sunday, February 08, 2009 posted 12:02 PM EST

The jackpot in America’s favorite lottery game is growing. Even though the grand prize was not awarded Saturday evening, 2 lucky tickets in Arizona (1), and Oklahoma (1) matched all 5 white numbers and won $200,000 cash each. In addition, 641,315 tickets across the nation won a total of $4,185,649 in prizes.

Because no one correctly matched all six numbers in Saturday’s drawing the jackpot will grow to an estimated $78 million.

The cash option for the Wednesday, February 11th drawing will be an estimated $42.5 million.

The numbers drawn Saturday night were 5, 18, 20, 28, 53 and the Powerball was 27. The Power Play multiplier was 2.

Other prizes won Saturday evening included twenty-seven tickets that matched 4 white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. Eight additional tickets at this prize level were also wisely purchased with the Power Play option that multiplied winnings 2 times to $20,000 cash!

A total of 135,670 winning Powerball tickets multiplied their prizes by 2 Saturday. Players 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 an animated spinner displays 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 $27,267,078 in Powerball and Power Play tickets between Thursday and Saturday night.

The lotteries sold more than $2.56 billion in Powerball tickets in FY08. That translates into more than $743 million for worthwhile state projects.

Powerball is now played in 30 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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