Do you play your birthday? Your family's birthdays? Do you have a set of numbers that you ALWAYS play?
WINNING NUMBERS: Wednesday's winning Powerball numbers
Here are the numbers that came up the most in Powerball drawings in the last 14 years, according to Powerball.com records.
The #20 red ball has been a winner 49 times, the most of any of the numbered balls, according to Powerball.
The #20 is also the second most common number on the five white balls that are selected in each Powerball drawing as well, behind 26 and ahead of 32, 16 and 42.
Are those your numbers?
The #25 white ball has only been selected 111 times in 14 years, and that's in comparison to the most common ball #26 being picked 151 times in the same time period.
The odds of matching every number are 1 in 175,223,510, according to Powerball.com. Are those good odds? A person has better odds of playing in the NBA (1 in 6,864,000), being a movie star (1 in 1,505,000) or becoming the president of the United States (1 in 10,000,000).
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Which state has the most winners?
You might have better luck buying your ticket in Pennsylvania than in New Jersey, if history is any indication.
More jackpot-winning Powerball tickets — 16 since 2003 — have been sold there than any other state or U.S. territory participating in the big multi-state lottery game.
Here is the rundown:
• Pennsylvania — 16
• Indiana — 11
• Louisiana — 8
• Florida — 7
• Missouri — 7
• Iowa — 6
• Minnesota — 6
• South Carolina — 6
• Arizona — 5
• Connecticut — 5
• Kentucky — 5
• Wisconsin — 5
• New York — 4
• Oklahoma — 4
• West Virginia — 4
• Delaware — 3
• Georgia — 3
• Kansas — 3
• New Hampshire — 3
• New Jersey — 3
• New Mexico — 3
• North Carolina — 3
• South Dakota — 3
• Rhode Island — 3
There have been four jackpot tickets sold in each of the 39 states that have had at least one jackpot winner, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. New Jersey ties with eight other states at three jackpots each.
Indiana placed second in the nation, with 11 Powerball jackpots. Louisiana placed third, with eight. New York has four big wins.
And which are the states with NO lotteries?
Residents of Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming will have to head out of state to buy a ticket for the chance to cash in on the winning numbers. Not only do these seven states not participate in the lottery game, they don't even have state lotteries of their own!
I can see people driving to other states to buy a ticket but what do Hawaiians do?
Powerball's last major jackpot was in February 2014, when it climbed to $425 million
Tickets cost $2 and include picking five numbers between 1 and 59 and then one "Powerball" number between 1 and 35. The drawings are at 10:59 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays and the cut off to buy tickets is 9:45 p.m. on the day of drawings.
The jackpot winners receive either payments over 29 years or a smaller cash lump sum. The cash option for the jackpot has risen to $337.8 million.
The biggest Powerball jackpot awarded by the Multi-State Lottery Association was $590.5 million and went to the holder of a single winning ticket in May 2013. An 84-year-old Florida widow who bought her Powerball ticket after another customer let her get ahead in line came forward Wednesday to claim the biggest undivided lottery jackpot in history: $590 million.
Gloria C. MacKenzie, a retiree from Maine and a mother of four who lives in a modest, tin-roof house in Zephyrhills, where the lone winning ticket in the May 18 drawing was sold, took her prize in a lump sum of just over $370 million. After federal taxes, she is getting about $278 million, lottery officials said.
The association also operates the Mega Millions jackpot, which awarded a top prize of $656 million three years ago.
Game drawings for Powerball, played in 44 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, are held on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. in Tallahassee, Florida.
