A Wednesday winner in Wisconsin: Powerball's $768.4M jackpot has a single winner

A ticket sold in Wisconsin won the third-largest lottery prize in U.S. history on Wednesday night.

The lucky numbers for the $768.4 million jackpot were 16, 20, 37, 44, 62 and Powerball 12. The top prize surged from an estimated $750 million due to strong ticket sales.

The lump sum payout is $477 million.

“It’s going to be a very green spring for our first Powerball jackpot winner of 2019,” David Barden, Powerball Product Group chairman and New Mexico Lottery CEO, said in a statement. “A jackpot of this size can make many dreams come true — not just for the winner, but for all Lottery beneficiaries and the lucky state of Wisconsin.”

The Powerball jackpot had grown since December, when a ticket sold in New York won an estimated $298.3 million. The jackpot resets to $40 million for Saturday's drawing. 

The odds of hitting Wednesday's prize — the largest lottery jackpot of 2019 — was 1 in about 292 million according to Powerball.  But Powerball says 1 in every 24.87 tickets wins a prize, starting at $4. 

In the previous drawing eight tickets won $1 million prizes and another two scored $2 million. Tickets cost $2 each, or $3 if players choose to multiply non-jackpot prizes with Power Play. 

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Powerball is played in 44 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Some lotteries sell Powerball tickets online, but only to residents of the jurisdiction. Residents of the six states that don't play — Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada and Utah — could throw their hat in the ring by traveling to another state. 

The only jackpots larger than Wednesday's include the world record $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot in January 2016 shared by winners in California, Colorado and Tennessee.

A woman from South Carolina anonymously claimed the second biggest prize of a $1.537 billion Mega Millions jackpot last October. And in August 2017, a Massachusetts hospital worker's pipe dream came true when she won a $758.7 million Powerball prize.