Powerball jackpot at $500 million

According to the California Lottery, a California resident matching all six numbers on a Powerball ticket for tonight’s drawing could take home a lump- sum payment of $306 million. They said just about everyone that comes in is buying a ticket. While your odds are not good -about 1 in 300 million – that isn’t stopping people from playing and dreaming.

The jackpot will be the largest since a Powerball prize that climbed to $564.1 million last February before it was won by players from North Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico. The record Powerball jackpot stands at $590.5 million, which was struck in May 2013.

Overall, the move to worsen the odds is a gimmick by lotteries that have experienced slowing sales, Aaron Abrams, an associate math professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, told NorthJersey.com in July.

If not, let me fill you in. “They come up with gimmicks”, Abrams said. But recently they got worse.

The Power Play purchase can multiply prizes, other than the jackpot and match five, between 2 and 10 times, indicated by the red Powerball’s number.

For the Powerball, the most overdue numbers include 1, 11, 34, 3, 35, 24. Meaning, it’s harder to win.

Roger Lewis, deli manager at the Friendship Food Stores in Port Clinton, said customers have already been buying Powerball tickets more than usual Wednesday morning, but expected sales to really pick up once people got off work in the evening. Now it’s between 1 and 26.

Three Massachusetts players have won the jackpot since the game was introduced in the state back in 2010, according to the Massachusetts Lottery.

Powerball is played in 44 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.