Powerball ticket holders may be feeling sad and relieved at the same time after last night's lottery draw.
Betters and ticket holders were all eagerly waiting for the results of the lotto draw at 10:59 pm ET last night. With the jackpot prize at $360 million, everyone was hoping to match the winning numbers and be proclaimed the new Powerball multimillionaire. To their dismay, however, no one became $360 million-richer. Thankfully, they have another day to purchase tickets and hope for even a greater sum.
Last night's winning numbers were 2, 11, 26, 34, 41 with 32 as the Powerball number.
With no one matching Wednesday's draw, the pot has again been raised. It now sits at $475 million--the second largest Powerball jackpot in history. If won on Saturday, May 18, the lucky winner will receive a $302.4 million cash value.
While most ticket holders were dismayed for not winning the pot, not everybody went home empty handed. According to the Powerball site, tickets from Delaware and Pennsylvania won $2 million, while 16 states had $1 million-winning ticket holders.
The change in the lottery's policies in January 2012 -- allowing tickets to win cash other than the jackpot for matching a portion of the winning numbers --helped boost the ticket sales of the lottery game. With more chances of winning prizes from $4 to $2 million, more and more people are purchasing tickets in the hopes of winning.
Notably, according to Powerball spokeswoman, Mary Neubauer, the increase in ticket prices allowed the prizes to grow considerably faster.
"We moved Powerball from being a one dollar game to a two dollar game," explained Neubauer, as reported by ABC News. "We thought at the time that this would mean bigger and faster-growing jackpots."
With the whopping prize pots, people from across the world have also been wanting to purchase Powerball tickets. However, the spokeswoman said tickets can only be purchased at a "licensed retail location" at a "member state."
The next Powerball draw will happen on Saturday, May 18, at 10:59 pm ET. The draw will be live streamed on powerballlive.com, with the winning numbers posted on powerball.com
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