10 October 2023 , 03:03
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The numbers have been announced for Monday's Powerball jackpot as Americans check their tickets anxiously to be the possible winners of an estimated $1.55 billion.
After no one matched the numbers on Saturday, the jackpot went unclaimed and climbed to more than a billion and a half dollars. This jackpot is the fourth-largest U.S. lottery prize ever with the largest jackpot ever being $2.04 billion in November 2022 that was won by someone in California.
The winning numbers announced Monday are: 16, 34, 46, 55, 67 and 14.
The $1.55 billion can be paid with yearly checks over 30 years, but most jackpot winners choose to get the money in cash, which comes out to around $679.8 million after taxes. The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot is 1 in 292.2 million, which is purposely designed to be rare so the prizes can grow bigger and bigger.
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Five states don't allow the Powerball (AP)When every drawing goes unclaimed, the prize money goes up. This current prize has gone unclaimed for 34 consecutive drawings, with the last winner on July 19. The streak of most unclaimed weeks is 41, which was set in 2021 and 2022.
Powerball is played in 45 states, Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. It's no played in Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah. Alabama, Hawaii, and Utah all ban gambling in their state constitutions.
Even though Nevada is home to Las Vegas, one of the gambling capitals of the world, the state doesn't allow lotteries. Alaska picks and chooses what lotteries they participate in.
It's been 34 weeks that the lottery has gone unclaimed (AP)A typical Powerball ticket costs $2, and players can choose their six numbers or have a computer choose for them. If there's no winner tonight, the prize money will go up and there will be another drawing next week.
Some people plan to buy Powerball tickets or sometimes split the cost of a few among an office, but one couple from Maryland decided to buy one on a whim and won a million dollars.
Christine Oberheitmann, a teaching assistant, and her husband made a pit stop in Cape Charles, Virginia as they were heading back to their home in Berlin, Maryland. While stopping for a bite at Sting-Ray restaurant, Christine decided to buy a ticket for the Powerball when she saw how big the prize money was - a cool $500 million.
She later told media outlets that she couldn't resist the temptation with a prize that big, so she let the computer randomly select her numbers and she ended up with one million dollars.