Wednesday Powerball Drawing

By now the news has spread around the world - there were three winning Powerball tickets from last night's unprecedented drawing for nearly $1.6 billion dollars. And, according to press releases, California's winner has stepped forward. Sound unlikely? Read on:

Breaking news at this hour - according to one state lottery, at least one winning ticket has been identified in the massive Powerball jackpot that exploded Wednesday night to almost $1.6 billion by the time of the drawing.

While Powerball fever has officially swept the nation, one group of New Jerseyans learned the hard way to check, double check, and then triple check just to make sure.

Once again today, lottery officials have pushed the ever growing Wednesday Powerball jackpot up. Now clocking in at a cool one and a half billion dollars, we all realize that winning the big one isn't going to put $1.5 billion in your pocket overnight. So, if you're a New Jersey resident, exactly how much can you expect to take home?

With the next Powerball jackpot now ballooning to a whopping $1.4 billion, a lot of people are dreaming about what they could do with that kind of money. Even after taxes, you'd still take home almost $870 million. That's an awful lot of exotic cars, huge homes, and lifetime vacations. But, before you do any of that, here are a few things that you should do if you end up holding the winning ticket