Powerball

Powerball has morphed into a jackpot juggernaut - the big gorilla of the lottery world - topping $200 million for the third time this year. As in since January. The last time was just six weeks ago, when New Jersey's Pedro Quezada hit an annuity prize worth $338.3 million, and collected $211 million in cash. Before taxes, of course . Because no one hit all the numbers drawn Saturday night - 7, 12, 26, 36 and 40, with a Powerball of 17 - the jackpot rose to $222 million for the annuity, or $144.5 million for the lump sum payout.

While orchestrating a recent Powerball pool, I made a colossal blunder. I bought the 100 tickets in New Jersey. If we had hit the jackpot, and had the only winning ticket, that move could have collectively cost the 40 of us millions of dollars. If you have a choice, better, much better, to buy your lottery tickets in Pennsylvania for two reasons: (1) It's one of the only states where jackpots won within its borders are free from state and local taxes (including Philadelphia's wage tax)

The Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots were missed over the weekend, but a Montgomery County ticket snagged a Cash 5 jackpot worth $325,000. The ticket, which matched all the numbers (4, 5, 9, 12 and 23) for the April 20 drawing, was sold at the Acme Market at 320 W. Dekalb Pike in King of Prussia. Mega Millions. Tuesday's drawing will be worth $92 million for the annuity, $69 million for the cash, because no one matched all the numbers drawn Friday night: 6, 8, 12, 22 and 43, with a Mega Ball of 28. Matching five and winning at least $250,000 were two tickets sold in New York, one each in Virginia, South Carolina, Michigan and Missouri.

Beginning tomorrow, you can forget about having to take the R2 to Wilmington, or the interstate to D.C. for that matter, to get your Powerball fix. That's because tomorrow - in time for Saturday's drawing - Pennsylvania becomes the latest state to join the super-size lottery cartel. Previously, the closest Powerball outlets were in Delaware and the District of Columbia. Powerball, known for its large jackpots (the biggest was $295.7 million in 1998), is a favorite of many Pennsylvanians, which contributed to the state's joining the multistate lottery last December.

Now we know what unlucky numbers look like. In last night's Powerball drawing, 7, 8, 33, 38 and 50 came up, along with a Powerball of 29, producing one of the stingiest payouts in a year. No one hit the jackpot. No one matched the first five numbers, so no one won the $1 million or $2 million prizes. In Pennsylvania, nobody even won the $10,000 or $40,000 prizes. The biggest prize was $200, and only 21 tickets won that. Nationwide, less than $2.6 million was won. In April, the average non-jackpot payout was almost $11 million.

FOUR LUCKY ticket-holders struck it rich last weekend, but here's the real winner of the $295 million Powerball binge: the government. Powerball is a multistate numbers racket that would be quashed by the Justice Department if it were privately run. Instead, the state bureaucrats behind these get-rich-quick schemes are allowed to ban outside competition - including private slots, phone betting, pull tabs and card rooms. When it comes to profiting from the mathematically challenged, lawmakers want the booty all for themselves.

Powerball is stoked for another wild ride. The jackpot is up to a whopping $250 million - a quarter-billion dollars - for Wednesday's drawing, and if no one wins that one, expect the $300 million barrier to be broken for the third time this year. One further rollover, and it could be one for the game's record books. Powerball's biggest-ever annuity prize of $360 million was set in 2006, just two drawings after the jackpot hit just what it is now - $250 million. Now, with tickets at $2 apiece, money could come in faster - especially with competing Mega Millions at a comparatively measly $33 million.

Powerball's cash jackpot is up to $99 million after no one won it all Saturday night. Look at it this way - that's more money than Shrek Forever After raked in this weekend. So winning would be your own DreamWorks production. Nobody won $1 million, but three tickets - sold in Florida, Indiana and Wisconsin - won $200,000 each by matching the first five numbers, 19, 20, 40, 47 and 57, but not the Powerball of 29. As a result, Wednesday's annuity jackpot goes up to $190 million.

He may be unemployed and weighed down with a leg cast and crutches, but don't tell Jose Colon he should have stayed in his bed in North Philadelphia. There are the doctor's orders, and then there is the healing power of Powerball. "If I win $250 million, I can give him a bonus, a little tip," Colon said of his knee surgeon, who may very well have been in the same 4 1/2-hour line at the 7-Eleven store on Route 52 in Wilmington, where men in business suits and women checking their pagers squatted on milk crates next to trash bins in yesterday's hot midmorning sun. All for an 80 million-to-one chance of becoming filthy, filthy rich in the biggest lottery jackpot ever.

Powerball's finally into territory where jackpots soar. A couple more rollovers could put the game across the $300 million mark, seen by Powerball only once in nearly five years. The jackpot, building since late June, rose to $212 million on Saturday night, when no one hit all the numbers drawn - 19, 30, 48, 53 and 55, with a Powerball of 18. It's the year's third biggest jackpot, trailing the $336.4 million won in Rhode Island in February, and the $241 million snagged in Iowa in June.

DES MOINES, Iowa - It's all about the odds. With four out of every five possible combinations of Powerball numbers in play, someone is almost sure to win the game's highest jackpot during Saturday night's drawing, a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars - and that's after taxes. The problem, of course, is those same odds just about guarantee the lucky person won't be you. (The winning numbers: 10, 13, 14, 22, 52 and Powerball 11.) The chances of winning the estimated $600 million prize remain astronomically low: 1 in 175.2 million.

Powerball has morphed into a jackpot juggernaut - the big gorilla of the lottery world - topping $200 million for the third time this year. As in since January. The last time was just six weeks ago, when New Jersey's Pedro Quezada hit an annuity prize worth $338.3 million, and collected $211 million in cash. Before taxes, of course . Because no one hit all the numbers drawn Saturday night - 7, 12, 26, 36 and 40, with a Powerball of 17 - the jackpot rose to $222 million for the annuity, or $144.5 million for the lump sum payout.

One in a series of articles getting you ready for the U.S. Open at Merion, June 13-16.   THE MOST influential person at this June's U.S. Open might not be three-time winner Tiger Woods or reigning Masters champion Adam Scott. Or USGA executive director Mike Davis, who is responsible for setting up Merion's East Course for, as the championship's website states, golf's toughest test. Or even NBC's Johnny Miller, whose jab-like observations figure to ruffle some egos. No, the one holding the keys at America's sixth-ranked course, which is hosting this flagship event for the first time in 32 years, is Matt Shaffer, director of golf course operations at the Ardmore institution.

The Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots were missed over the weekend, but a Montgomery County ticket snagged a Cash 5 jackpot worth $325,000. The ticket, which matched all the numbers (4, 5, 9, 12 and 23) for the April 20 drawing, was sold at the Acme Market at 320 W. Dekalb Pike in King of Prussia. Mega Millions. Tuesday's drawing will be worth $92 million for the annuity, $69 million for the cash, because no one matched all the numbers drawn Friday night: 6, 8, 12, 22 and 43, with a Mega Ball of 28. Matching five and winning at least $250,000 were two tickets sold in New York, one each in Virginia, South Carolina, Michigan and Missouri.

Powerball's jackpot is on a faster trajectory, and California could be the cause. Two weeks ago, the most populous state in the union joined Powerball, and immediately set a record, selling $8,408,180 million worth of tickets in its first three days. That's "an all-time record for any new Powerball member," according to a California Lottery news release. More sales mean faster growing jackpots. A week ago, the grand prize was $80 million, and the last six times that happened, five times it rose by the minimal increment, first to $90 million, then to $100 million.

April 13 was lucky for a 55-year-old Delaware man, who won $1 million in the latest Powerball drawing. "My son kept telling me I need to check my tickets and I kept putting it off," the unnamed winner told lottery officials. Unlike Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Delaware lets winners remain anonymous. But on Monday night, two days after the drawing, "I called the Delaware Lottery 800 number and lost my breath when I found out the news!" he said. Every week for five years, he has bought six lottery tickets, including two for Powerball, and liked to say that someday he would win. He matched the first five numbers -- 10, 12, 31, 56 and 57, but not the Powerball of 33. No one matched them all, so the jackpot rose for Friday's drawing to $80 million for the annuity, $56.1 million for the cash.

ONE MIGHT think Joseph C. Byrd would be flying high right about now, given that he was one of 48 SEPTA employees who won a $172.7 million Powerball jackpot last April. Think again. Byrd, 44, of West Philadelphia, allegedly ran amok at SEPTA's Market Street headquarters Feb. 18, shouting obscenities, leading cops on a foot chase into Market Street traffic and telling SEPTA Police Chief Thomas Nestel III, "I'm going to f------ shoot you in the face," according to an arrest affidavit obtained Monday by the Daily News . The bizarre episode concluded with four or five SEPTA cops taking Byrd into custody and involuntarily committing him to a mental-health facility, the affidavit said.

While orchestrating a recent Powerball pool, I made a colossal blunder. I bought the 100 tickets in New Jersey. If we had hit the jackpot, and had the only winning ticket, that move could have collectively cost the 40 of us millions of dollars. If you have a choice, better, much better, to buy your lottery tickets in Pennsylvania for two reasons: (1) It's one of the only states where jackpots won within its borders are free from state and local taxes (including Philadelphia's wage tax)

PLANTATION, Fla. - A dozen real estate agents who won $1 million in the Powerball are sharing part of their prize with a new employee who opted out of joining the agency's office pool. "The way we are as a group, we absolutely would not want anyone to ever feel left out," team leader Laurie Finkelstein Reader said Thursday. The 12 agents at Keller Williams Partners Realty in Plantation joined the office pool for the March 23 Powerball drawing, pitching in $20 each. Employee No. 13, Jennifer Maldonado, started her job March 8 and decided not to join the pool until she received her first paycheck.

How much did a Passaic, N.J., man really win when he hit Saturday's Powerball jackpot? A lot less than the $338 million on the ceremonial check presented to him Tuesday at state lottery headquarters. Dominican immigrant Pedro Quezada, a bodega owner, wasn't the only one to hit the jackpot. So did Uncle Sam and the State of New Jersey. So much so that Quezada is likely to be shocked to find out that despite vast sums already withheld from his winnings, he'll still face an enormous tax bill, as pointed out by a recent analysis by Forbes . OK, nobody's going to sorry for the guy, but watch how the money disappears.