Powerball jackpot increases to $675 million for Saturday

At one point Wednesday morning, the Pennsylvania Lottery says that tickets were being sold at almost 4,200 per minute.

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

A statistics professor at Metropolitan State University in Colorado calculates the odds of winning at about 1 in 292.2 million.

To win the jackpot, players must match numbers on all five white balls in any order and on the red Powerball.

A Lapeer man won a $337 million Powerball jackpot in August of 2012. None of those were in Kansas.

Wednesday the K. J’s Super Store in Malad had a constant flow of people buying tickets hoping to be the next big victor, including a number of Utahns. In this case, when you have the chance to be $500 million dollars richer, why not buy a $2 lottery ticket?

The jackpot has grown to the sixth-largest prize ever in North America.

Wednesday night’s Powerball jackpot, estimated to be at $500 million, had lottery players across the country scrambling for tickets.

The jackpot for Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing has reached $500 million. Claiming your winnings anonymously is only possible in six states: Delaware, Kansas, Maryland, North Dakota, Ohio and SC.

Saturday’s $334 million prize went unclaimed, so the jackpot climbed to $450 million for the next drawing tonight. Tickets must be purchased today no later than 8:59 p.m. The largest Powerball prize was a $590.5 million jackpot won by a Florida woman in May 2013.

Additional sales boosted the jackpot to a half-billion dollars, making it the fourth largest in the 23-year history of the game. “I would give to world hunger, and I would try to pay a couple of college tuitions”, she said.