Powerball jackpot remains at $1.5 billion

If no one were to win the $1.5 billion on Wednesday, it will surely soar over the $2 billion mark.

The Powerball jackpot surged past the world record on Monday when it hit an estimated $1.4 billion.

“We draw five white balls out of a drum with 69 balls, and one red ball out of a drum with 26 red balls”, according to a statement from powerball.com. No one has matched all six Powerball numbers since then, so the prize kept growing.

The central OH bureau says scammers reach out via email, telephone and regular mail to “inform” secondary winners of smaller prizes.

Lottery winnings of that magnitude are taxed at a federal and state level. The state’s largest Powerball group win was a $107.5 million cash jackpot shared by 48 SEPTA workers in the Philadelphia area in April, 2012.

Odds of picking a winning combination were 1 in 292 million. The California lottery says a winning jackpot ticket was sold in suburban Los Angeles.

Either way, lottery officials want people to play responsibly. We will post the numbers when they are released at 7:59 p.m. Refresh your browser and check the live updates below to make sure you see them as soon as possible.

He added that a victor in IL would actually take home is more like $540 million instead of 1.5 billion because of taxes. It could take several hours before officials know whether any other winning tickets were sold elsewhere.

Powerball came to Texas in 2010, about 17 years after the state authorized lottery sales under Gov. Ann Richards.

Tickets cost $2, or $3 for a Power Play ticket, which boosts the value of non-jackpot prizes. Powerball tickets are sold in 44 states, as well as Washington, D.C., the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.