Lottery officials jacked up over jackpot

If you elect to take the jackpot in one lump sum, the jackpot is cut 38 percent to $930 million.

Officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, a group of state lotteries that oversee Powerball, said this is one of the most frequent complaints.

For those curious about your chances of winning, picture this: it’s about one in 292.2 million.

The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338, according to the New York Lottery.

“You are 4 times more likely to be struck by lightning and die then you are at winning this Powerball”, said ESTEM High School math teacher, Mark O’Laughlin.

Head over to the USA Mega Jackpot Analysis site for a breakdown of every states’ tax rules in relation to the Powerball.

The next drawing is Wednesday at 9:59 p.m. Central time.

This history-making Powerball jackpot has skyrocketed sales statewide to $155.8 million for drawings leading up to, and including, Saturday’s record jackpot drawing.

Powerball seems like it’s the USA national lottery but not quite.

“Sales are doing exponentially more than we’ve ever done before”, he said, adding that they were more than double what they were before the last record United States jackpot of $656m in March 2012 – won by ticket holders. People can win $4 for just having the Powerball number. On a normal day, when there is not such a big jackpot, he said he’d sell about $5,000 worth of lottery tickets a day.

Powerball lottery tickets in front of the splash screen for the powerball.com website.

The former record Powerball jackpot was $590.5 million, won on May 18, 2013, by Gloria C. Mackenzie, of Zephyrhills, Fla.

So, maybe the solution is simply to buy your ticket, cross your fingers, go to bed as usual Wednesday night, and dream big.

Unlike in many other states, in Texas no state taxes come out. Also consider, with the dollar where it is right now, that actually amounts to about $1.4 billion in Canadian dollars.