Early Thursday morning officials confirmed that two winning tickets were sold...
One in Arizona and one in Missouri. An additional 8,924,123 players won smaller prizes.
The numbers drawn Wednesday night are: 5, 16, 22, 23, 29 and Powerball of 6.
A lottery official said late Wednesday that the jackpot increased to $579.9 million by the time of the drawing, making the cash option $379.8 million.
The drawing Wednesday night for the Multi-State Lottery Association's prize followed 16 consecutive drawings that produced no top winner, boosting the Powerball to the second-largest potential lottery payout in U.S. history.
Tickets were selling at an average of 130,000 a minute across the United States in the hours before the drawing, said Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game. That equates to players buying 7.8 million tickets an hour, spending $15.6 million an hour for a chance at the huge jackpot.