POWERBALL HAS A WINNER
But no $1.5 billion ticket was sold in Colorado, officials say.
No tickets sold in Colorado match the numbers for the $1.5 billion jackpot.
This time there is a winner. The winning numbers in the record-setting $1.5 billion multistate Powerball lottery were drawn at 8:59 p.m. Wednesday — 4-8-19-2734, with a Powerball of 10. The Power Play is 2.
California Lottery officials said there was a winning ticket sold in suburban Los Angeles, but the Colorado Lottery announced on Twitter that there was no winner here.
Not all states had reported by late Wednesday,
Powerball ticket sales in Colorado on Wednesday alone reached $7.3 million as players lined up at stores to purchase a chance at the prize.
That count was as of late afternoon, more than three hours before the lottery cut off ticket sales.
Ticket sales in Colorado have nearly doubled daily since no one won the jackpot Saturday and the lottery jumped into billion-dollar territory.
Between Sunday and 4 p.m. Wednesday, Colorado retailers sold $19 million of the $2 tickets.
In a typical week, lottery ticket sales in the state are about $1.3 million to $1.4 million.
For the current Powerball run of 20 drawings with no top winner, $50 million had been spent on tickets in Colorado.
Despite the increase in ticket sales, the jackpot remained at $1.5 billion for the drawing. It had been increasing $100 million per day since the weekend.
Approximately 24 percent of ticket purchases made in Colorado will go toward funding state parks, outdoor recreation and schools.
At $50 million, the state’s cut is $12 million. Last fiscal year, the state received $128 million for all lottery sales.