Lottery players go to great lengths for Powerball tickets

The husband purchased their Powerball ticket at the Scotchman in Woodruff.

As the Powerball lottery jackpot grows to an estimated $1.4 billion after no hit all six numbers Saturday, lottery players across the United States are purchasing their tickets in hopes of hitting the jackpot.

That marked the 19th without a grand prize victor.

Rules differ by state, but most winners have about 180 days to come forward and claim their prizes.

It’s also wrong, though there are anomalies. That means residents of one state are driving to another to play Powerball, then probably spending a bit more on gas, soda or doughnuts.

Lottery officials, backed by mathematicians, said probabilities equal out over time, but in shorter periods, oddities can occur, in the same way someone could flip a coin and get heads five times in a row. The jackpot is the amount paid out over 30 years and not the amount a victor could receive immediately.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the Powerball jackpot for Wednesday is a world record $1.4 billion.

The current cash payout is $868 million.

Gary Grief, executive director of the Texas Lottery, responded that Powerball prominently displays both the annuity and cash prize figures.

How did the jackpot get so big? .

One of the most persistent misconceptions, officials said, is that winners risk tax trouble if they opt for an annuity but die before all 29 payments are made. It’s now less likely that players will win the jackpot, but there’s a higher probability of winning a smaller prize (from one in 32 to one in 25).

$590.5 million: The largest previous Powerball jackpot in May 2013. The Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball lottery, had changed the odds of getting all of the matching Powerball numbers in the fall from about one in 175 million to one in 292.2 million.

By buying every combination, you’d guarantee yourself a victory, but you’d have just a 22% chance of buying the only winning ticket and keeping that jackpot all to yourself, according to Victor Matheson, professor of economics and accounting at the College of the Holy Cross in MA.