Powerball Jackpot Now a World Record $1.4 BILLION

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The Powerball jackpot for Wednesday, Jan. 13, is now an estimated annuitized $1.4 Billion with an estimated cash value of $868 million. The Multi-State Lottery Association’s Powerball Group has increased its estimates due to the continued strong sales nationwide.

This is a new World Record for any lottery jackpot game that can be won with a single ticket, surpassing the previous Powerball record jackpot of $590.5 million that was won in Florida in May of 2013, and the previous Mega Millions record of $656 million that was won in March of 2012 and shared by winners in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland. Spain’s Christmas lottery, nicknamed “El Gordo,” or “the fat one,” distributed $2.4 billion in prizes last month, with the top prize of $811.2 million in that drawing split among 1,950 tickets.

While there was no grand prize winner on Saturday, Jan. 9, the drawing created 28 new millionaires across the Country. Three tickets won $2 million and 25 tickets won $1 million. In addition to that, a total of 18,315,365 prizes were won in the Jan. 9 drawing with a value of $159,080,965.

West Virginia produced five tickets worth $50,000 on Saturday. Those lucky tickets were purchased in Wheeling, St. Albans, Spencer, Kenova and Wellsburg. All told, 103,979 tickets that were sold in West Virginia won a prize of some sort.

Wednesday night’s drawing will be the 20th drawing since the most recent Powerball grand prize winner on Nov. 4, 2015 (Tennessee).

Powerball tickets cost $2 ($3 with the Powerplay option that increases non-jackpot prizes) and can be purchased up until 9:59 p.m. ET on drawing days. The Powerball drawing takes place every Wednesday and Saturday night at 10:59 p.m. from Tallahassee, Fla.

West Virginia Lottery proceeds benefit education, seniors and tourism. Since the West Virginia Lottery began in 1986, more than $8.5 billion in proceeds have been generated to support those good causes.