Sales grow as Powerball jackpot reaches $800 million

While the Jackpot amount is huge, the odds of winning are very small.

When the payout gets really high people who don’t usually buy tickets shell out cash for tickets- but why is that?

The largest jackpot in USA lottery history has soared to a whopping $800 million, driven by feverish excitement among players dreaming of becoming millionaires in the drawing on Saturday (local time).

(Bob Gathany/AL.com via AP).

Officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game expect about 65 percent of the possible number combinations to have been bought for Saturday night’s drawing.

Francisco Figueroa, second from right, buys Powerball lottery tickets at the Blue Bird Liquor store in Hawthorne, Calif., on Friday, Jan. 8, 2016.

Well they’ll be taxed 5% more than a USA victor.

Don Speare, a Grand Forks resident, said he doesn’t play often, but when the jackpot gets this high, he can’t resist.

“You can throw out the logic”.

David Ridenour has boxes of losing lottery tickets stashed away at home.

“Nobody wants to miss out on a chance on a record jackpot. It’s a new experience for all of us”. “The jackpot is much harder to win, obviously”.

The Powerball jackpot can be won by matching five white balls drawn out of a drum with 69 balls and one red ball drawn out of a drum with 26 red balls. You have a better chance of winning one of the other eight prizes, a one in 25 chance.

“Sometimes it’s chaotic because you have a lot more people spending like $100 at a time”, Sioux Falls lottery retailer Tyler Haeffner said.

The winning numbers will be announced Saturday evening.

McCarius knows the odds of winning are slim but he’s just joining in on the fun. Friday, you could get the chance to win that jackpot for free. In addition to Leach’s jackpot, four players won the game’s $1 million prize.

“If I win, I want to win big”, Grant said.

But people buying tickets remain optimistic.

And if those odds aren’t low enough, there might not even be a victor.