No one won the $550 million multi-state lottery jackpot Wednesday night but a VERY lucky Powerball ticket sold at a gas station in San Diego came close.
California Lottery officials confirmed one of two top winning tickets in the drawing was sold at a Chevron located at 6949 Linda Vista Rd.
The ticket matched five numbers – 4-19-23-25-49 – missing only the Powerball number, which was 14.
Lottery officials said the ticket sold in San Diego was worth $2,768,497. Had it matched the Powerball number, it would have fetched the $550 million prize.
The second top-winning ticket in Wednesday’s Powerball drawing was also sold in California, at Paul’s Market on E. Empire Street in San Jose.
California law requires major payoffs of lottery games to be paid on a pari-mutuel basis.
Other tickets that matched five numbers but missed the Powerball number were sold in Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, New York, Texas and Virginia. They are all worth $1 million, except the one sold in Virginia. That one is worth $2 million because the player utilized the Power Play option, where for an
additional $1 per play, a ticket with five numbers, but missing the Powerball
number, is worth $2 million.
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Lottery officials also said seven tickets were sold that matched four numbers plus the Powerball number, and those were each worth $33,076.
The drawing was the 34th since a ticket with all six numbers was sold.
With no jackpot winner in Wednesday’s drawing, the Powerball jackpot has grown to an estimated $640 million heading into the next drawing, which is Saturday.
Meanwhile, there are big bucks growing in the Mega Millions jackpot, too.
No one won the $625 million Mega Millions jackpot earlier this week so now that prize has grown to $750 million ahead of the next drawing, which is Friday night.
The Mega Millions prize is now the fifth-largest in U.S. history, the Associated Press reported. And, it’s only the second time the jackpots in both national lottery games have topped $500 million.
Last week – in the Jan. 8 Mega Millions drawing – luck struck in San Diego’s National City community where a ticket worth $576,869 was sold at a supermarket.
By the way, the odds of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number is 1 in about 293 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game. The overall chance of winning a prize is 1 in 24.87.
The Powerball game is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.
