QuickFacts on Powerball lottery

Florida is among the top-selling POWERBALL states of any US lottery, exceeding more than $3.2 billion in sales, yielding $1.3 billion in education funding to date.

Dreams of riches inspired a flurry of ticket-buyers, sending this weekend’s Powerball jackpot surging to $800 million even faster than lottery officials expected. Seventy-five percent of all the possible combinations were purchased before Saturday’s drawing, Grief said, and he expects that enough tickets will be sold to cover about 80 percent by Wednesday.

The odds of winning Powerball are now 1 in 292 million against you winning the $1.5 billion jackpot.

Another Powerball drawing failed to produce a victor on Saturday after reaching a staggering $900 million jackpot earlier in the day – by far the largest ever.

Under the previous system, players had to choose five numbers between 1 and 59, and one “Powerball” number between 1 and 35.

The huge jackpot has forced many convenience stores to bring in extra clerks to keep lines moving, hoping that people wanting Powerball tickets will decide to also buy a snack or something else in the store.

A victor would have the option of being paid $1.4 billion through annual payments over 29 years or opting for one $868 million cash payment. If the victor is from Allen County, the county, which has a 1.35 percent local income tax, will get $13.5 million, the state would get $33 million, and you might end up with a billionaire for a neighbor. The more numbers chosen increase the chances of winning.

The jackpot is so big that billboards around the country have to advertise the price as $999 million because they’re not built to show billions.

“It’s been fun, but somebody needs to win”, Thornbrugh said. After that, if no one wins during the bi-weekly drawings, the sum increases proportionately to ticket sales. In Minnesota winners can not remain anonymous, if the winning ticket is sold here we will eventually know who won. In addition to NY, 43 states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, participate in the game.