TOPEKA (KSNT) – A lottery official in Kansas said there could be a method behind the recent extremely rare streak of big Powerball winners.
Powerball prizes normally come with pretty long odds. The Kansas Lottery reports the chance of winning the overall jackpot prize is one in 292,201,338 odds while winning a smaller, but still large, prize of $1,000,000 has odds of one in 11,688,054.
Despite this, multiple people across Kansas won $1 million prizes during a drawing on April 29, and they weren’t alone. Dozens of people across the country won similar big prizes during the Wednesday night drawing for the Powerball game. The winning set of numbers for the drawing were 3-19-35-51-67 and a Powerball of 15.
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One lucky ticket holder in Kansas even hit the $143 million Powerball jackpot, splitting the winnings with another player in Indiana for an estimated take-home prize of around $32.6 million each. But how did so many players in Kansas and beyond become up winners this week?
We got in touch with Kansas Lottery spokesman Cory Thone to chat about the rare number of winners for the Wednesday Powerball drawing. He said that, for his organization, it was a night to remember.
“Last night was one of the most exciting night’s in Kansas Lottery history, as we not only had a Powerball jackpot winner here in the state, splitting the prize with Indiana, but we also had six other seven-figure prize amount winners all from Powerball,” Thone said. “It was a really incredible thing to see.”
Aside from the jackpot winner, several others in Kansas also earned themselves big prizes through the Powerball lottery game. One ticket holder won a $2 million prize while five others across the state won $1 million prizes.
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The Kansas Lottery reports that a person needs to match all five numbers and the Powerball number in order to win the jackpot prize. A $1 million prize is won by matching five numbers, but not the Powerball number. Players who add on the “Power Play x2” feature can double their prize.
Thone said there might be an explanation for the large number of winners seen in the recent Powerball drawing. He said that, simply, many people may have been in a big hurry when they were choosing their lottery numbers, with a lot of them landing on the same combination of numbers.
“We actually have a theory as to what may have happened, and I haven’t been able to test it yet, but if you go look at a playslip, the winning numbers are all in a vertical column,” Thone said. “So, somebody would’ve gotten a playslip to pick their numbers and just gone straight down, and those were the numbers that hit. And so, that’s why so many people around the country hit five numbers, but not the Powerball because all five of those were in a row and then the Powerball is [in] a different place, you have to pick a different number.”
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Thone said the recent drawing could be in the top five for most big Powerball prize winners in a single night for the Kansas Lottery. He said several of the winners have already reached out to his office to make plans to claim their cash.
“It’s one of the best parts of the job, when you get to give someone a prize,” Thone said. “Even a small prize is awesome, it can make someone’s day. But something like this for not just even one player, but for this group of people is a life-changing night and we get to be a part of that. And so we’re pretty fortunate to get to work here and experience that.”
Kansas Lottery winners can claim their cash anonymously. Retail businesses that sell winning tickets are eligible for kickback prizes after the tickets are claimed.
The Powerball jackpot prize reset to $20 million with a cash option of $9.1 million following the recent jackpot win, with the next drawing set for Saturday, May 2. You can learn more about how to play the lottery game and check your numbers by clicking here.
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