ILLINOIS — Once again the Powerball jackpot, now nearing $2 billion, went without a winner on Saturday, however eight lucky Illinoisans now have tickets worth tens of thousands of dollars.
To have claimed the massive jackpot, players needed to have matched all five regular white ball numbers plus the red Powerball: 28, 45, 53, 56, 69 and 20 for the Powerball. The aforementioned eight all missed it by one number, getting four of the five regular numbers plus the Powerball.
Here is where all eight tickets were sold and their corresponding winnings:
$150,000Circle K3507 Chicago Rd. Steger, IL$150,000Express Lane199 Route 84 N. Cordova, IL$150,000Illinois Lottery Websiten/a$50,000Casey’s908 W. Carpenter St. Jerseyville, IL$50,000D G Food & Liquor Mart2027 Ogden Ave. Downers Grove, IL$50,000Hucks3300 Broadway St. Mount Vernon, IL$50,000Hucks3300 Broadway St. Mount Vernon, IL$50,000MJ7 Oil Corporation901 Sheridan Rd. Winthrop Harbor, IL
The difference between the nine winners whose prize is $50,000 and the three who can claim a $150,000 prize? The “Power Play.” They each paid $1 more to multiply a potential non-jackpot winning ticket which, in the case of this drawing, tripled the amount.
No one has won the top Powerball prize since Aug. 3, making for 40 consecutive drawings without anyone matching all six numbers.
What’s behind three months of lottery futility? It’s simple math. The odds of winning the jackpot are an abysmal 1 in 292.2 million. The 2020 U.S. Census counted 258 million people of lottery ticket buying age, 18 and older. That means every single person in the U.S. would need to buy at least one ticket, and every one of those tickets would have to have different numbers, for one person to even have a chance at winning the jackpot.
The next drawing is set for Monday with the current jackpot of $1.9 billion, though that could grow as more tickets are sold.