$100,000 Winning Powerball Ticket Sold In CT: Check Your Tickets

CONNECTICUT — A Connecticut resident is waking up $100,000 richer this morning after matching four numbers, the Powerball and Powerplay option in last night's drawing. The drawing was only $50 million overall but a Connecticut resident has secured one of the top consolation prizes.

According to the Connecticut Lottery, 6,951 winning tickets were sold in Connecticut for last night's Powerball drawing. Besides the $100,000 winner, 10 people won $200, 16 people won $100, and the rest of us won between $4 and $14.

And if you didn't check your Mega Millions tickets from Friday night, you definitely should. Two Connecticut residents won $10,000 for that drawing and 4,963 winning tickets were sold in the state for the Mega Millions drawing.

The winning Powerball numbers for Saturday, August 24, are: 05, 12, 20, 21, 47 and the Powerball of 01. The Powerplay is 02.

The winning Mega Millions numbers for Friday, August 23, are: 11-15-37-54-68 MB-21 MP-2.

No one won the overall Powerball jackpot for last night, which means it has grown to $60 million for Wednesday, Aug. 28. The one-time cash payout for tonight's Powerball drawing will be $42.3 million.

The winning Powerball numbers are drawn every Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. Eastern time, with Powerball results usually posted within five minutes.

In most states, ticket sales halt at least one hour before the drawing, but a state is allowed to end sales earlier, such as Illinois, which stops sales three hours before the drawing. In Maryland and New Jersey, ticket sales end at 9:59 p.m.; in Virginia, they close at 10 p.m. Check with your state lottery for the cut-off time.

The largest Powerball jackpot in history was $1.586 billion, which was split by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee in January 2016.

A player in South Carolina claimed the $1.6 billion Mega Millions jackpot on Oct. 23, 2018, game officials said; the winner chose not to be identified.

To win the Powerball jackpot a player must match all five white balls in any order and the red Powerball number. The odds of picking the correct Powerball grand prize numbers are one in 292,201,338, which doesn't change even if more players buy tickets when the jackpot is enormous.
You have a better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot if you let the computer select your numbers, according to the officials with the lottery. About 75 percent of winning tickets over the years had numbers picked by a computer.

Powerball tickets cost $2 apiece. Find locations where you can buy your Powerball tickets here.
These are the five largest Powerball jackpots in the game's history:

• $1.586 billion, Jan. 13, 2016
• $768.4 million, March 27, 2019
• $758.7 million, Aug. 23, 2017
• $688 million, Oct. 27, 2018
• $590.5 million, May 18, 2013

Winners can choose to either have the full jackpot amount paid out in 30 installments over 29 years, or winners can take one lump sum payment that is smaller than the actual total.