Powerball Jackpot: $415 Million for Tonight's Drawing

Editor’s Note: Patch is re-running this story in case you missed it the first time around.

Written by BRIAN MCCREADY (Patch Staff)

The jackpot for Saturday’s Powerball drawing has risen to $415 million since no one bought the top prize ticket Wednesday.

Lottery officials said the $53.5 million jump from Wednesday’s jackpot is due to brisk sales across all 44 participating Powerball states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot was $361,500,000 and produced 29,234 winning tickets in Connecticut.

But don’t get too excited, while some states including New York had a $1 million winner, the best Connecticut could do was 61 people won between $100 and $300.

All of the other “winners” received between $4 and $21.

With Saturday’s Powerball jackpot now at $415,000,000, lottery officials promise Connecticut will see even more winners across the state.

If no one matches all five numbers plus the Powerball in Saturday’s drawing, the jackpot will continue to grow. Tickets for Saturday’s Powerball drawing can be purchased until 10 p.m. EST at retail locations throughout Connecticut.

To win the Powerball jackpot, players must match five numbers from a field of 1 through 69 and one Powerball number from a field of 1 through 26. Tickets cost $2 per game.

And for another dollar, players can buy the Power Play feature where lower tier prizes multiply by two, three, four, or five times.

The largest Powerball jackpot across all participating states to date was $1.58 billion, won in California, Florida and Tennessee on January 13, 2016.