No Powerball winner, jackpot could hit $1.3 billion

For Wednesday night’s drawing, it will be at least $1.4 billion dollars. A victor Saturday night would have been a record; the estimated pot for Wednesday’s drawing has blown past that.

Saturday’s Powerball drawing created 28 new millionaires across the country.

“It only takes 1 ticket to win”.

To put the record jackpot in perspective, the current $1.4 billion prize already is more than double the next largest lottery jackpot in USA history, a $657 million Mega Millions prize split by three winners in March 2012.

More than $900 million (£615 million) in Powerball tickets were sold in the four days leading up to Saturday’s Lottery draw.

The Meijer store in Goshen was busy selling Powerball tickets on Saturday, although employees weren’t seeing a lot of sales on Sunday.

Late Monday morning it jumped another 100-million dollars.

Though no one won the jackpot prize, ticket holders in various states won smaller prizes, some as high as $2 million.

For the first time, the Powerball jackpot is expected to surpass $1 billion.

California is one of 44 states, plus Washington D.C. and two USA territories, that participate in Powerball. You’d better check it carefully. A few hours before the drawing, the Texas Lottery reported that $5,838,152 in Powerball tickets were sold in a one-hour period. That lottery, started in 1812, is held every year around Christmastime.

“We had to put up a little handwritten sign because we don’t have provisions for $1.3 billion”, Prymas said.

Can I play the Powerball lottery, even though I’m Canadian?

“Although there are no authorised lottery retailers based outside of the US, our lottery ticket partner allows you to purchase US state and national lottery tickets from anywhere in the world”, Lottery USA says on its site. They advertise an estimated jackpot, which is traditionally lower than the actual prize amount. A retired couple from Illinois, Merle and Patricia Butler, received one of the $218.6 million slices of the top prize.

But the huge jackpots like this week’s prize are actually a mirage. The cash option value is what the victor would get taking the money right away, before taxes are deducted. However, winners rarely choose to do that.