Powerball Jackpot Tops Half-Billion Mark After No Wednesday Winners

No one hit the Powerball jackpot in Wednesday's drawing, so it soars to $510 million for the Saturday, Aug. 20 drawing. Three tickets sold in New York matched up for the third prize of $50,000.

The winning numbers for Wednesday were: 9-15-43-60-64 and Powerball No. 4.

The third-prize winning tickets got four of the five numbers right plus the Powerball.

Powerball drawings are held every Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. Eastern time. The record in the game was a $1.6 billion drawing in January 2016, which was won by a group of Tennessee workers.

A Powerball ticket worth $1 million was sold for Saturday's drawing at a Hudson Valley market.

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

Players pick five numbers from one to 69 and a sixth Powerball number, one through 26. (Most people just choose to get random numbers.) There are various levels of payouts, but to win the ultimate jackpot, you have to match all five numbers plus the Powerball.

The odds of that happening? Just 1 in 292,201,338. In other words, don't cash out your kids' college fund to buy tickets.

A winner can pick two ways to claim their prize. The first is an annuity that is paid out 30 times over 29 years. The second is an immediate cash payout that is available immediately but is significantly less money than the total jackpot.

by Ryan Bonner. Lanning Taliaferro contributed to this report.