Powerball jackpot increased to $450 million

The Powerball jackpot for the Wed., Jan. 6, drawing has been increased to an estimated annuitized $450 million. Powerball is played in 44 states – including DE – as well as the District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

Before you do any of that, you’ll want to purchase a $2 ticket or two (or 10) before Wednesday’s drawing. Nobody matched the five numbers plus the Powerball number to win the $344 million jackpot for Saturday’s (January 2) drawing, meaning the jackpot will roll over into the next drawing, according to the Powerball website.

Smith occasionally picks his own numbers, but on Tuesday, he let the computer help determine his fate.

The Powerball lottery jackpot is at the highest it’s ever been since September of 2013 with a whopping $400 million.

Though no one hit the jackpot for Saturday’s drawing, more than 46,000 players in IN won prizes.

Tickets, each costing $2, for the big jackpot drawing will be available until 9:59 p.m. Wednesday. So you have a 75 percent better chance of being killed by a celestial rock than winning Powerball. The record jackpot for the game was $590.5 million, won in May 2013 by a single player in Florida. He chooses the Powerball then carries the forms next door to a convenience store where he buys 10 weeks of tickets at a time.

New Powerball rules – mainly enlarging the matrix for drawing the six balls – went into effect in October with the changes meant to produce bigger jackpots.

It is the largest Powerball prize since the $564 million jackpot last February.

The chances of winning the Powerball are 1 in 175 million, according to lottery officials. “There’s a billboard right off the Interstate and a lot of people see that right before they come in”.

“I’d buy a nice house” said Dominic Gianntonio, who says he only plays Powerball when the jackpot exceeds a hundred million.

That’s enough money for a local college graduate to pay off their student loans – on average Pennsylvania students carry about $32,000 in debt – more than 7,500 times. “It will start increasing and increasing and it will be to the point where we’re having two cashiers just to cover it”, he said.