Lotto fever has hit Southern California, with the two national lotteries having combined jackpots totaling nearly $2 billion.
Monday’s Powerball draw was for an estimated $800 million jackpot. The winning numbers are: 7, 11, 19, 53, and 68. The Powerball number is 23 with a 2X Power Play.
No one hit all six numbers, meaning Wednesday’s jackpot will increase to an estimated $865 million. There were two one-million-dollar tickets sold. One in New York, and the other in Florida.
A winning ticket from Saturday’s draw worth $2.4 million that hit five out of the six numbers, excluding the Powerball number, was purchased at a 7-11 in the Sun Valley area of Los Angeles County.
If one lucky winner hits all six numbers from Monday’s draw, they will be the first Powerball jackpot winner since someone from Michigan won the grand prize on Jan. 1.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that a group of people purchased the winning ticket for a $1.76 billion jackpot in Kern County in October 2023. That was the second-largest prize in history.
Tuesday’s Mega Millions jackpot is worth even more, at a whopping $1.1 billion. There have been no Mega Millions jackpot winners since December of last year, when a Chevron station in Encino, located at 18081 Ventura Boulevard, sold not one, but two winning tickets that matched all six numbers, including the gold Mega Ball.
Last Friday, someone from Riverside County won three-quarters of $1 million.
Lottery jackpot winners are given the option of receiving the full amount in annual payments over 29 years or electing to take a lump sum payment, which is paid immediately, but less than the total jackpot amount.
The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million. That’s slightly better than your chances of hitting all six numbers for the Mega Millions draw, which are 1 in 302,575,350 million.