One victor in $310.5 million Powerball drawing

New rules for playing the Powerball multistate lottery game are going into effect after this Saturday night’s drawing, with the changes meant to produce bigger jackpots but also to boost a few of the lesser prizes significantly.

Wednesday’s prize is the largest jackpot since February 2015, and the chances of winning are just one in 175 million. The numbers were 40-59-21-39-55 with a Powerball of 17 and Powerplay of 3. The range of numbers for the Powerball will also change, with players now able to choose a number between 1 and 26. “The profit from every Powerball ticket bought in Virginia, win or lose, goes to benefit K-12 education in the Commonwealth”.

– The Power Play option, which costs an extra $1, will multiply prizes (except the jackpot and Match 5 level) by 2X, 3X, 4X or 5X and occasionally 10X. Today it’s sold by 47 lotteries, with players buying more than $4 billion in Powerball tickets each year.

The news that a local victor won the jackpot was uplifting to other customers in the area as well.

Virginia’s biggest Powerball prize was claimed on Valentine’s Day 2013, when Dave and Nancy Honeywell of Fredericksburg collected a jackpot prize worth $217 million. One of those prize levels is about to change.

PowerBall drawings will continue to be held at 10:59 p.m. eastern on Wednesday’s and Saturdays.