Mt. Olive store sells Powerball ticket worth $150,000

While no one won the $500 million Powerball jackpot Wednesday, a lottery ticket worth $150,000 was sold at a Mount Olive liquor store.

New Jersey Lottery announced Thursday that there were seven tickets sold in New Jersey that matched four white balls and the Powerball for the Wednesday drawing making them worth $50,000 each.

In addition, one of those tickets, purchased at The Wine Rack on Route 206 in the Flanders section of Mount Olive, was purchased with the Powerplay option, making it worth $150,000.

The winning numbers for the Wednesday drawing were: 02, 11, 47, 62 and 63. The Red Power Ball number was 17. The Multiplier number was 03.

In addition, there were 347,833 New Jersey players who took home an estimated $1,690,431 in prizes ranging from $4 to $300, according to Lottery Executive Director Carole Hedinger. The six other winning $50,000 tickets were sold at various locations around the state outside of Morris County.

The Powerball jackpot will roll to $675 million or more for the next drawing to be held Saturday. The prize will be the biggest ever, beyond the previous record of $656 million. That Mega Millions prize was won in 2012 by players in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland.

Powerball is played in 44 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

The jackpot for the twice-weekly game started at $40 million on Nov. 4 and has been growing ever since. Because the payout is based on sales, the prize has grown more quickly as the jackpot has increased because more people have been drawn to play. As people rush to buy tickets, officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association on Thursday boosted the estimated Saturday's jackpot to $700 million — but it's possible they could raise it again before the drawing.

The prize would have a cash option of $428.4 million, and that's before taxes are deducted. The $700 million prize is based on an annuity, which would pay out the money over 29 years.

The odds are one in 292.2 million that an invidiual ticket will win. By comparison, your chance of being struck by lightning in a year is about one in 960,000. But as lottery officials often note, you have no chance of winning if you don't buy a ticket.