One Powerball ticket wins $254 million jackpot

UNITED STATES -– (PRESS RELEASE) -- Powerball paid off in BIG ways Wednesday evening. One lucky ticket in Missouri matched all 6 numbers and walked away with the $254 million jackpot. The holder of the winning ticket will now have to decide to either take the 29-year, 30-installment annuity, or the one time cash "lump sum" amount of $120,508,183.

An incredible 20 tickets correctly matched the 5 white numbers and won $200,000. These tickets were sold in Arizona (2), DC (1), Iowa (1), Kentucky (1), Minnesota (1), North Carolina (2), New Mexico (2), Pennsylvania (5), Tennessee (4), and Wisconsin (1).

An additional 3 tickets that correctly matched the 5 white numbers also had the Power Play option that multiplied their winnings by 3 for a total of $600,000 each! Those lucky tickets were purchased in North Carolina (1), Oklahoma (1), and Tennessee (1).

Besides the jackpot, there were a total of 1,848,894 winning tickets in America's Game Wednesday evening. Those tickets won prizes totaling an incredible $17,547,579!

The numbers drawn Wednesday were 9, 19, 29, 42, 53 and the Powerball was 17. The Power Play multiplier was 3.

Other big winners included 107 tickets that matched 4 white numbers plus the Powerball and won $10,000. An additional 8 tickets at that level also purchased the Power Play option multiplying the prize by 3 for a total win of $30,000!

A total of 231,908 winning Powerball plays were multiplied by 3 Wednesday evening. Winners were able to do so by purchasing the Power Play option for one dollar. With Power Play you can multiply your winnings, except for the jackpot, from 2 to 5 times. At the beginning of each drawing a wheel is spun to select that night's multiplier.

Players purchased more than $73.9 million in tickets between Sunday and Wednesday night.

The jackpot for Saturday, January 27th will be $15 million.

The lotteries sold more than $2.8 billion in Powerball tickets in FY06. That translates into more than $825 million for worthwhile state projects.

Powerball is now played in 29 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.