Power Ball Drawing August 23 2017

Wednesday's Powerball jackpot was the second-largest in US history.

Here are the winning numbers for Wednesday night's Powerball jackpot, which was over $700 million:

6, 7, 16, 23, 26, and Powerball 4.

One winning jackpot ticket, worth $759 million, was sold in Chicopee, Massachusetts, CNN reported.

The jackpot is the second-largest in US history. The record, set in 2016, is $1.5 billion.

Powerball drawings happen every Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET. Before this Wednesday's drawing, there had been 21 consecutive ones without a winner.

If you won Wednesday night's Powerball drawing, try to resist the urge to tell everyone you know — there will be many people who want a piece of the pie. Hire a lawyer who can help you figure out how to claim your winnings and protect your privacy.

You'll have a choice to claim your winnings in the form of a lump sum or an annuity. The annuity is a series of 30 annual payments, which increase by 5% each year.

Choosing the lump sum might sound tempting, but you'll get less than the face value of the prize. The cash payout is about $480 million.

Business Insider's resident personal-finance expert, Lauren Lyons Cole, recommends taking the series of payouts as opposed to the lump sum.

"Most people would do better to choose the annuity rather than the lump sum," she wrote. "Unless you're supremely good with money and already have a team of advisers who have proved themselves over time, the annuity is the more cautious choice."

The billionaire Mark Cuban agrees.

There have been plenty of stories about lottery winners who have seen their lives fall apart after the cash windfall. And some studies have found that lottery winners often have a harder time finding enjoyment in life after winning.

Emily Cohn

Deputy Editor in Chief

Bryan Logan

Senior Editor, News

Bryan is a senior editor on the West Coast news team who joined Insider in January 2015. He built the West Coast news division from a staff of one to a team of 12, expanding its footprint from San Francisco to Los Angeles and Sydney, Australia, from 2015 to 2018. In 2019, Bryan took over leadership duties on Insider's transportation desk, successfully growing the team from four full-time journalists to a class of eight reporters, two correspondents, and an associate editor in less than a year. Under his leadership, the transportation team broke stories on Tesla, NASA, and United Airlines. It produced extensive coverage of the SpaceX Demo-2 launch, profiled Ford CEO Jim Hackett on the future of the legacy automaker, and launched a quarterly series spotlighting the next phases in the world of mobility. Bryan was also part of the inaugural team that launched Insider's revamped IGNITION conference, hosting the titans of the transportation, tech, and mobility industries in San Francisco. In 2020, Bryan rejoined Insider's news desk, overseeing the continued expansion of the West Coast bureau, which now includes reporters in Hawaii and a partnership with our newest office in Singapore. Bryan is an LA native who began his career in talk radio, working as a news editor at the No. 1 talk-radio station in the US. He also anchored weekend news coverage for an NPR affiliate in San Diego. He earned a bachelor's degree from San Francisco State University, where he studied journalism and communications. Follow Bryan on Twitter at @BWLogan and SoundCloud. Encrypted inbox: bryan logan [at] protonmail [dot] com