Powerball Jackpot Climbs To $80 Million After Fourth Straight Drawing With No Winner

The Powerball jackpot climbed to $80 million, taking another step toward the nine-figure mark, after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn in Wednesday’s 43-state lottery game. The last jackpot was won five drawings ago, but with ticket sales remaining slow, the game needs a jackpot of more than $100 million at least to capture the imaginations of U.S. lottery players.

The Wednesday Powerball game sold 12,780,588 tickets, a drop of more than 700,000 from Saturday’s drawing — even though that drawing was worth $60 million and Wednesday’s game carried a $70 million jackpot. But it appears that to Powerball players in 2014, there’s no difference between jackpots under $100 million.

The last time a jackpot turned over from $90 million to $100 million, ticket sales jumped by almost 3 million. That happened between May 14 and May 17 when sales went from 12,741,835 to 15,654,103.

But the current Powerball jackpot still has at least three drawings to go before hitting the $100 million level.

In 51 drawings so far this year, Powerball has sold a total of 957,252,671 tickets, an average of just over 18.7 million per drawing. But that average is inflated by a run-up to a $425 million jackpot on February 19. That single drawing sold more than 91.5 million tickets on its own, by far the highest sales total of the year, and the highest since another $425 million jackpot on August 7 of 2013.

That massive Powerball jackpot last year was responsible for more than 135.5 million ticket sales.

Though no one won the Powerball jackpot on Wednesday, there were two winners of the $1 million second prize. One of those tickets was sold in Florida, the other at a Q Mart convenience store in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. That Wisconsin winner was the second $1 million ticket sold in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, this month.

Overall, Wednesday’s Powerball drawing was good for $5,305,973 in prizes to be claimed by ticket holders. That amount comes from 405,236 tickets that contained some sort of winning combination.

Was your Powerball ticket one of the winners? Check it carefully against the following numbers, drawn at 10:59 pm in Tallahassee, Florida.

10 — 20 — 25 — 50 — 53 Powerball 35

While Saturday’s Powerball drawing offers an $80 million jackpot for a winner who claims the prize in 30 annual payments, if the potential winner requests a single cash payment, the jackpot will be worth $46.7 million before taxes.