Powerball soars to $800 million

Last fall the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game, changed the odds to make it harder to win, leading to larger prizes.

Those elusive winning numbers in Saturday’s Powerball jackpot drawing were: 16-19-32-34-57 and Powerball 13. 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 jackpot has been steadily climbing since it first started at $40 million in November. Non-jackpot prizes totaled about $159 million in Saturday’s drawing, according to Powerball.

While the $1.3 billion is by far the largest ever up for grabs in North America, Spain’s latest elGordo lottery, or “The Fat One”, had a prize pool of $2.4 billion prize.

California is one of 44 states, plus Washington D.C. and two US territories, that participate in Powerball.

Of course, with odds close to one and 300 million, leaving a better chance of getting struck by lightning, it’s still fun to dream. “The jackpot signs around the state you will see indicate $999 million, but don’t worry, it’s actually $1.3 billion”.

Another winning ticket was divided among a group of friends in Maryland that dubbed themselves the “Three Amigos”.

Spain’s Christmas lottery, called El Gordo (“The Fat One”), is often called the world’s biggest lottery. The previous record was a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot in 2012.

Julian Perez fills out a Powerball ticket, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016, in Miami.

The Powerball lottery numbers are drawn on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.

Hy-Vee Manager Cheryl Sanders said only more excitement has come from a near-winning ticket being sold at their store.

Plus, if someone else matched the winning numbers, too, you’d have to split the prize. Anndrea Smith, 30, said Saturday that she already had spent more than she usually does on Powerball tickets. With nearly unimaginable riches at stake, many Americans who normally shun lotteries joined the long lines of people buying tickets at retail stores across the country. Even lottery officials are shocked about the massive jackpot. The total would also more than double the $590.5 million that Powerball paid May 18, 2013, for one ticket in Florida.