Five lottery players across the nation were just one ball shy of winning the world's largest current lottery jackpot Wednesday night. The ball those players were missing was the Powerball.

Powerball is the most exciting and well-known lottery game in the world; just ask any of the hundreds of thousands of players that collected cash prizes Wednesday night.

There were no Powerball jackpot winners Wednesday but 765,908 players across the nation won a total of more than $4.5 million in prizes in America's Game.

Because no one correctly matched all six numbers in Wednesday's drawing the jackpot will grow to an estimated $145 million. The cash option for the Saturday, May 1 drawing will be an estimated $76.3 million. The numbers drawn were: 27, 34, 42, 49, 52 and the Powerball was 23. The Power Play multiplier was 2. Five players correctly matched the 5 white numbers and won $100,000. The tickets were sold in Arizona, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. None of the winners purchased the Power Play option. If they had, they would have multiplied their prize by 2 for a total win of $200,000. Forty-six players matched 4 white numbers plus the Powerball and won $5,000. Four of those players purchased the Power Play option, giving them a total win of $10,000.

More than 73,000 winning Powerball players multiplied their prize by 2 Wednesday. They were able to do that by purchasing the Power Play option for one dollar. With Power Play you can multiply your winnings, except for the jackpot. At the beginning of each drawing a wheel is spun to select that night's multiplier. This current jackpot run started with the Wednesday, March 17 drawing. The drawing on Wednesday night was the 13th consecutive draw without being hit. More than 5.7 million Powerball players across the nation have won a total of almost $44 million in cash prizes since this jackpot run started.