West Virginia Powerball

A Powerball jackpot worth $276.3 million has been won by a player in West Virginia. The winning numbers for the draw held on Saturday 15 March were 6, 22, 42, 43 and 47, and the Powerball was 16.

The winner of the $276.3 million jackpot must now choose between taking the prize as a series of 30 annuity payments over 29 years or as a lower cash lump sum worth $139,421,731.

West Virginia is just one of 29 states that participates in the Powerball game. The game is also played in the US Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. To win the jackpot, players need to correctly select all five main numbers plus the Powerball, and the odds of achieving this are just 1 in 146,107,962.

There are eight other prize levels below the jackpot, and the next one down requires players to match the five main balls only in order to win $200,000. The odds of doing this are a much better 1 in 3,563,608, and so it is no surprise that twelve players achieved this in the draw held on 15 March.

Powerball was launched in 1992 with the purpose of raising for each participating state. In 2007 alone there was more than $2.5 billion spent on Powerball lottery tickets, and $725 million of that went to good causes.

Now that the $276.3 million prize has been won, the Powerball jackpot has been reset to a baseline of $15 million.

17th March 2008

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