Iowa Lottery players won more than 85,000 prizes in last night's Powerball drawing, including three tickets that were one number away from having a share of the jackpot and each won $50,000. The game’s giant jackpot ended up being even higher than the final estimates leading into the drawing, and the top prize was won by a ticket purchased in Massachusetts.
JACKPOT AMOUNT & WINNING NUMBERS
Strong sales nationwide pushed last night's jackpot to $758.7 million annuity, or $480.5 million lump-sum option. The winning numbers in last night's Powerball jackpot drawing were: 6-7-16-23-26 and Powerball 4. The Power Play number was 4. A total of 85,440 plays purchased by Iowa Lottery players won prizes in the drawing.
IOWA’S BIG WINNERS
Three tickets purchased in Iowa came within one number of having at least a share of the jackpot. They each won a $50,000 prize by matching four of the first five numbers and the Powerball. The tickets were purchased in different areas of the state:
Retailer Name Address City
Ampride All Round Truck Plaza 3243 Fifth Ave. S. Fort Dodge
Casey’s 502 Main St. Dakota City
Kwik Star 100 W. Gilbert Drive Evansdale
POWERBALL SALES IN IOWA
Iowa Lottery players bought more than $4.7 million in Powerball tickets for last night’s drawing, including more than $3 million in tickets yesterday alone. During yesterday’s busiest stretch from about 5-6 p.m., Powerball tickets were selling at more than $7,800 per minute in Iowa. But the average Iowa Powerball purchase yesterday remained around $5, or about 3 plays per ticket. We're glad to see that Iowans played at a fun level and didn’t go overboard.
EASY PICKS VS. MANUAL PLAYS
It's a debate that's been around as long as the Powerball game itself: Easy pick or manual play? More than 90 percent of all of the plays purchased by Iowa Lottery players for last night's drawing were easy picks, meaning that the lottery terminal automatically generated the numbers on the ticket. That's a higher percentage than we often see, and likely speaks to the convenience factor of easy picks. Typically about 70 percent of all Powerball plays in Iowa are easy picks, with the remainder being number combinations that players choose themselves.
A NOTE ABOUT ‘COVERAGE’
The odds of winning the jackpot in Powerball are about 1 in 292.2 million because there are about 292.2 million ways you can combine the numbers in the game to make a play. By tracking sales, lottery officials can estimate how many of the possible combinations have been purchased for a particular drawing. About 54 percent of all the possible combinations were purchased in last night's drawing.
I think that all Iowa lottery games would be more exciting if players could view a live drawing if every game on television. It would be more exciting.
Posted by: Izmaud Rakiem | August 24, 2017 at 11:01 PM