The Powerball multi-jurisdictional lottery finally awarded its first post-Jan. 15, 2012 rules changes jackpot, with a near-record annuity total, and a record cash value, meaning that the Powerball jackpot rolls over to its default of $40 million for the Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 drawing.
If you aren't in one particular state, you can stop hoping now. The one winner was in ... drum roll ... the state of Rhode Island. That's right, a ticket sold in a tiny state was the winner of the biggest cash value jackpot in Powerball History.
The winner numbers for the Feb. 11, 2012 Powerball jackpot drawing were: 1 - 10 - 37 - 52 - 57 with the Powerball number of 11. There was one winner of the big jackpot, but there are, of course, many more, and you can see the prize results in the table below.
The changes made on Jan. 15, 2012, including a higher entry fee, were made to increase the average size of the jackpot. With that, this value, $334 million, neared the largest Powerball jackpot ever, which was won on February 18, 2006 and had an annuity value of $364 million. That 2006 Powerball jackpot was the third-largest prize awarded for one set of numbers drawn in a U.S. lottery game; the top two jackpots belong to rival multi-jurisdictional lottery Mega Millions.
However, the cash payout was $208.5 million. That was a record for a cash value Powerball jackpot. The reason that the annuity was not a record but the cash value was comes about due to the way the cash vs. annuity payout is calculated ... using the interest on unpaid winnings to generate the rest of the money. The current jackpot uses a lower interest rate to calculate the annuity.
There were eleven other new millionaires made, in addition to the big winner, in the second ranked $1 million prize tier. None of them chose the Power Play option. Those winners were 1 from Colorado, 1 from Idaho, 1 from Louisiana, 1 from Minnesota, 1 from Missouri, 2 from New York, 1 from Oregon, 1 from Pennsylvania, 1 from South Carolina, and 1 from Wisconsin
It was thought that, once the entry fee was raised to $2 from $1, there might be a lapse in entries for a time as people adjusted to the new, higher fee. However, this huge Powerball jackpot may have eliminated those problems. Minnesota's Powerball sales, for example, are up 20 percent since the change went into effect.
Here is the table of winners for the Powerball drawing for Feb. 11, 2012. PB = Powerball.
| Prize Level |
Winners | Prize | PowerPlay Winners |
PowerPlay Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5-of-5 + PB | 1 | $334 Million | - | - |
| 5-of-5 | 11 | $1,000,000 | 0 | $2,000,000 |
| 4-of-5 + PB | 108 | $10,000 | 20 | $40,000 |
| 4-of-5 | 3,462 | $100 | 482 | $200 |
| 3-of-5 + PB | 5,748 | $100 | 801 | $200 |
| 3-of-5 | 105,818 | $7 | 14,888 | $14 |
| 2-of-5 + PB | 192,044 | $7 | 25,783 | $14 |
| 1-of-5 + PB | 696,496 | $4 | 100,170 | $12 |
| 0-of-5 + PB | 1,423,556 | $4 | 207,844 | $12 |
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
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