Three people won the $564.1 million Powerball jackpot Wednesday night and will split the prize.
The winning tickets were sold in North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Texas, according to USA Today. The Puerto Rico ticket was the first Powerball jackpot winner ever sold outside the continental United States. The territory joined the Powerball jackpot less than a year ago.
The winning numbers were 11, 13, 25, 39 and 54, and the Powerball number was 19. The winners could choose to take the lump sum option and they could each receive $381,138,450.16 before taxes.
The Powerball grew to $500 million a few hours prior to the drawing since no winner had claimed the since Nov. 29, 2014. The raise caused people across the nation to flock to Powerball outlets in the hopes of winning the $500 million.
The jackpot was the third-largest prize in Powerball history and the fifth-largest U.S. lottery prize, Fox News reported. The last time the jackpot reached a prize as large as Wednesday's was in May 2013 when the jackpot hit $590.5 million.
The Mega Millions game saw the largest payout of $656 million in March 2012, which was also split among three people in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland.
In 2012, state officials who run the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpot changed ticket prices and lowered the odds of winning jackpots, hoping the move would increase the number of players and the number of huge prizes.
More than half of the top 10 U.S. jackpot prizes have been won in the past couple of years, but the number of players had not increased as predicted. This means less money for state government programs that receive financial aid from lottery sales.
