Powerball jackpot soars to $500 million

Since Powerball tickets went on sale here in 2006, four North Carolina players have beaten the odds to win jackpots of $74.5 million all the way up to $188 million.

Powerball is sold in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Last summer, changes made to the popular lottery game pushed the odds up to 1 in 292 million, making it harder to win the jackpot.

Wednesday’s numbers are 2-11-47-62-63 Powerball 17 Powerplay 3x.

The odds of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number is 1 in 175,223,510, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. None of those were in Kansas.

Of course you have no chance of winning if you don’t buy a ticket.

Business was booming Tuesday night into Wednesday as customers entered local gas stations and stores in search of that lucky ticket that would win the $500 million Powerball prize. The jackpot would be the sixth-largest ever in North America. While there was no jackpot victor, more than 60,000 prizes ranging from $4 to $10,000 were won in IL during Saturday’s drawing.

Winners are advised to sign the lottery ticket as soon as they get the chance.

If there is no victor in Wednesday night’s drawing, the jackpot is expected to climb to a record-breaking $675 million.

No one has matched all six numbers in one of the bi-weekly drawings since the first of November.

“A lot of people traveling, they just pick up tickets here and there”, cashier Jeanne Klinkhammer said. Tonight’s upfront cash payout for the jackpot is $306 million, officials said. Powerball’s largest jackpot was more than $590 million in May 2013.

The biggest jackpot to date was the mega millions prize won in 2012-worth $656 million.

There actually tend to be more unclaimed prizes associated with a massive drawing like this week’s estimated $500 million prize, he says.