$50K Winner in Connecticut: Check Your Powerball Numbers, Again

By Greg Hambrick (Patch Staff)

Check those tickets again, Connecticut! There is one ticket in the state worth $50,000, according to Powerball officials.

Another 61 tickets won $100 to $200 in Connecticut. The Connecticut Lottery says there were 21,066 “winning” tickets sold here.

The winning numbers for Saturday, July 23, 2016 are:

• 5-7-23-35-39 and a Powerball of 11

There was no jackpot winner Saturday.

The top prize will increase to $422 million for the drawing on Wednesday, and could climb higher over the next few days.

With a cash value of $291 million, this will be the largest jackpot since January's record Powerball jackpot, which was worth nearly $1.6 billion.

That was the largest lotto jackpot awarded in U.S. history and was split by three winners.

The July 8 Mega Millions jackpot of $540 million ranked as the seventh-largest jackpot in the United States of all lottery games, including Powerball, officials said.

Powerball winning numbers are pulled every Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time.
The Powerball game is played by matching all five white balls in any order and the red Powerball number.

Each ticket costs $2. Find out where you can buy your Powerball tickets.

The odds of picking the correct Powerball grand prize numbers are one in 292,201,338.

If you still want to take a chance — someone has to win, right? — you have a better chance of hitting the jackpot if you let the computer pick the numbers for you.

The Multi-State Lottery Association, which operates the Powerball game, says about 75 percent of winning tickets occur when the numbers are selected by a computer.

Powerball is played in 44 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

So, what should you do if you win the big prize?

Many lottery winners hire an attorney, financial planner or both, since most people don’t exactly know what to do when they suddenly come into so much money.

Some even bring their lawyer with them to claim their prize. The lottery does not offer any counseling services or advice for winners.

You have two choices when you claim your prize: the full value paid in 30 installments over 29 years, or a one-time lump sum that is smaller than the actual total.

Then there’s the taxes. The federal tax on lottery winnings is 25 percent. Then, any extra income taxes like state or city would apply.

Financial experts say that if you can get more than a 3 or 4 percent return on an investment, the lump sum is actually the best way to go in the long-term.