Someone who bought a Powerball ticket in Oregon this week has a very valuable piece of paper. The only winning ticket in Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing, worth $340 million, was sold in Oregon. It was the largest jackpot in Powerball history, and the odds of picking all six numbers were one-in-146 million.
A few Iowans did win smaller prizes in last night’s drawing. A ticket sold in Cedar Rapids at the Blair’s Ferry Handimart on Edgewood Road is worth about $850,000. That ticket was just one number away from the jackpot — it matched the first five numbers but didn’t have the Powerball number — and the ticket-holder used the new Match 5 Bonus system to win a share of a bigger pot of money that’s only available when there are huge jackpots.
Five tickets sold in Iowa matched four of the white numbers, plus the Powerball number. Four of those ticket-holders will win $10,000 and the fifth gets $50,000 because he or she picked the “Power Play” option, paying an extra buck to add to their payout if they did win a smaller prize but not the jackpot. Wednesday’s winning numbers were 7, 21, 43, 44, 49 and the Powerball number was 5.