Powerball jackpot for Saturday's drawing grows to $615 million -- the 10th largest prize in history
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2023-07-08 14:15
Feeling lucky? The potential prize for the massive Powerball jackpot just made history, lottery officials announced Friday.

Feeling lucky? The potential prize for the massive Powerball jackpot just made history, lottery officials announced Friday.

A fortunate player could end up taking home $615 million in Saturday's drawing -- the 10th-largest Powerball prize ever. The jackpot has a $310.6 million lump-sum cash value, according to a Powerball news release.

Game leaders upped the ante Friday after increasing the possible winnings from an estimated $590 million.

"The decision to raise the jackpot was the result of strong ticket sales and an increase in the interest rates used to fund the annuitized prize," a spokesperson for the Multi-State Lottery Association told CNN in an email.

There have been 33 consecutive drawings without a big winner.

The last time a lottery player matched all five white balls and the red Powerball was on April 19, when a winning ticket in Ohio earned a grand prize of $252.6 million.

The lucky winner of Saturday's jackpot could choose between the annuitized $615 million prize over 30 years or to take the lump-sum payment. Both prizes are before taxes, according to lottery officials.

No one matched all six drawn numbers -- the white balls of 17, 24, 48, 62 and 68 along with the red Powerball of 23 -- on Wednesday. However, three lucky players in Florida, Ohio and New York won $1 million prizes, according to officials.

The drawing produced over 864,000 winning tickets for lower-tier prizes nationwide on Wednesday worth a combined total of $9 million.

"If no one wins the jackpot Saturday night, we are projecting an estimated jackpot of $650 million for Monday's drawing," a Multi-State Lottery Association spokesperson said.

A ticket sold in California won the largest-ever Powerball prize of $2.04 billion on November 7, 2022.

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