No Powerball winner, jackpot vaults to at least $415 million

(Reuters) – No one won the multi-state Powerball on Wednesday as the jackpot grew to at least $415 million, vaulting it into the top 10 highest U.S. lottery prizes in history, officials said.

The winning numbers from Wednesday’s draw were 30, 47, 57, 66, 69 and the Powerball number was 3, lottery officials said.

The Powerball jackpot has grown past $300 million for the first time since January, when three tickets for the game split $1.6 billion, a record for any U.S. lottery.

Seventeen consecutive drawings have produced no winner, lottery officials said.

The odds of winning at Powerball are one in 292 million, which according to statistics experts is equivalent to flipping a coin 28 times and getting heads every time.

According to the Powerball website, no one matched all six numbers and won the jackpot on Wednesday as the prize reached about $415 million. The amount placed it in the top 10 of U.S. lottery prizes ever, California lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said. The next drawing would be on Saturday.

Powerball is played in 44 states, including California, which is the nation’s most populous state, as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Even as lottery officials gear up for this latest drawing, they are still waiting for one ticket holder to come forward from the record $1.6 billion Powerball drawing in January.

Lottery officials still have no idea who bought the ticket, sold in Chino Hills east of Los Angeles, Traverso said. Under the rules of the game, the holder has a year from the time of the drawing to claim a prize.

The two other winning tickets were sold in Tennessee and Florida, and those winners have come forward.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Paul Tait)