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Posted: Tuesday, Mar 12,2019 | Time: 09:19 am | Edited by: The Lottery Lab Staff
For those who play the lottery regularly, Wednesdays and Saturdays are known as “Powerball days”. Drawings for Powerball are held on every Wednesday and Saturday, approximately at 10:50 PM ET. It is a so-called 5/69 lottery where players have to pick 5 numbers from a pool of 1 to 69 numbers and one Red Ball number from the pool of 1 to 26 numbers. There are 9 different ways to win and the overall odds of winning are 1 in 24.9.
Powerball jackpot starts at $40 million and keeps on rolling unless someone wins it. The highest jackpot amount won so far was $1.5 Billion and there were 3 winning tickets sold for that prize. Here are some fun facts about Powerball lotteries-
Are you curious about the most winning state? Then, you might want to take a trip to Indiana as it is considered as the most winning state. According to data released by MUSL (Multi-State Lottery Association), Indiana holds the highest number of Powerball winners. Indiana first participated in Powerball in the year 1992 and the total number of winners is 39. But Indiana isn’t the only lucky state, there are other states as well which joined later but have a significant number of winners. For instance, California joined in the year 2013 and already has eight jackpot winners! You might consider going on a trip to California as well.
The number 13 has got a bad reputation and many people consider it unlucky but it isn’t unlucky in Powerball. 13 is actually appears frequently as Red Powerball Ball. Actually, 19 and 13 are the most common numbers appeareing as Red Ball. Apart from that, data released from MUSL indicates that the top five main draw numbers for the Powerball lottery are 26, 16, 41, 22, and 32. 26 number actually appeared 275 times in total making it the most frequently appearing number.
The jackpot for Powerball starts at $40 million and there is no limit on the amount it can rise up to. The highest amount it has reached so far is $1.5 Billion. Can you imagine the fat stack of cash you’d receive after winning? $40 million might seem like a small amount but do you think that Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. is a small building? Because if you were to stack $100 bills, the money would as tall as the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. $40 million seems even better now!
Most winners opt for the lump sum payment option but if they opt for the annuity option, they are likely to get more paid a lot more. Players are paid in 30 yearly installments over the span of 29 years. Fun fact is the annuity amount increases by 5% each year and the taxes are deducted according to the amount you receive each year. With the annuity option, players will earn more over time with the increasing schedule of 5% every year.
This the favorite part for many Powerball players. As mentioned before the largest Powerball jackpot ever was a cool $1.5 billion and was split amongst three winning tickets. Apart from that, the highest single winning ticket jackpot was won by Mavis L. Wanczyk on August 24, 2017, from Chicopee, Massachusetts.
Tuesday and Saturday are the favorite days of Mega Millions of players because drawings for Mega Millions lottery is held twice a week, on Tuesday and Saturday. The jackpot for Mega Millions starts from $40 million and increases by 5% after every draw when no winner is drawn. It is a 5/70 game, which means players have to pick 5 numbers from the pool of 1-70 digits and the Mega Ball from a pool of 1 to 25 numbers. Odds of winning the jackpot in Mega Millions are 1 in 302,575,350 and the overall odds are 1 in 24. But the chance of winning a minimum jackpot worth $40 million in exchange for $2 bet is quite fascinating for the players. Some of the other fascinating facts about Mega Millions are-
Mega Millions was first introduced as The Big Game on September 6, 1996. The rules were different at the time and the jackpot was just “big”. This is because at first, it was only available in four states. In 2002, the game was relaunched and renamed The Big Game Mega Millions. That year, there were 9 Mega Millions jackpots won including the very first draw. Not only that, the number of participating states grew to 44 and the total number of jackpots won to date is 175.
Before October 23rd, 2018, the record of highest jackpot ever won was held by Powerball but recently someone from South Carolina single-handedly won a jackpot worth $1.6 billion. The winner hasn’t come forward but people are waiting eagerly for the winner to claim his winnings. The second biggest Mega Million jackpot was worth $656 million and was split amongst three winners. It is safe to say that the Mega Millions jackpot often rolled to a big amount due to the changes made in the game format in 2017.
When the jackpot reached $1.6 billion, lottery fever became quite impressive. Data released by MUSL indicates that almost 89% of the possible combinations were sold before the drawing took place on October 23, 2018. The second highest selling ticket for Mega Millions was recorded on March 6, 2007, when the total sale of tickets was worth $390,000,000 which means about 200 million tickets were sold. That’s one ticket for more than half of the total US population!
If you are looking for the lucky numbers for next draw, then you should try playing 01, 02, 28, 32, 62 and 09 as they are currently listed as the highest performing number on The Lottery Lab with a great percentage of 2,696.35%.
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