Sometimes it pays to leave yourself in the hands of fate. That’s how 18 lottery players just became millionaires in New Jersey after a quirky Powerball drawing this week, officials say.
Two tickets sold in Kansas and Indiana split the $143.4 million jackpot on Wednesday, April 29. But the Garden State also saw some big wins – four tickets worth $2 million each, and 14 worth $1 million.
New Jersey wasn’t the only state that saw a bunch of new millionaires as a result of Wednesday’s drawing. According to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which operates Powerball, 91 players nationwide won $1 million or more.
The unusually high number of winners appears to have resulted from many players selecting their numbers from a single vertical column on their play slips, a pattern that exists across multiple state lottery play slips, officials said (see an example of a ticket below).
The winning numbers were 03, 19, 35, 51, and 67. The Powerball was 15, and the multiplier was 02.
Here’s where the Garden State tickets were sold, New Jersey Lottery officials said:
$2 Million Winners
$1 Million Winners
The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million. The odds of matching 5 of 69 white balls without also matching the Powerball are approximately 1 in 11 million, the same as drawing 01, 02, 03, 04 and 05.
In 2025, the New Jersey Lottery had 13 second-tier Powerball winners, but this year there was only one before Wednesday’s drawing.
Send local news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com. Learn more about advertising on Patch here. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.
Sign up for free local newsletters and alerts for the
West Orange, NJ Patch
Patch.com is the nationwide leader in hyperlocal news.
Visit Patch.com to find your town today.