DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The world’s largest lottery jackpot has grown to $1.5 billion because of continuing strong Powerball ticket sales.
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Of course, winners will first have to choose between a lump sum of $868 million or annuity payments for the next 29 years-and then there are taxes. That alone would give you a handsome $346 million profit if you bought every ticket. And if your group is lucky, lottery officials recommend preventing hard feelings by putting in writing how you plan to split the prize, since it’s easy for misunderstandings to crop up when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.
Those three people automatically doubled their winnings to $2 million. You’d better check it carefully. So all but two bucks of what you spent on tickets would be tax-deductible. That means about $15.4 Million for the schools.
But don’t head over to the ATM to withdraw $584 million. With ticket sales doubling previous records, the odds are growi…
Tickets will be sold until 9:59 p.m. Wednesday. “We’re very concerned about people playing responsibly and not overspending”, Gary Grief said.
Plus, most states would take a chunk – something winners in Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming wouldn’t have to worry about.
Don’t let the fact that there were no winners during the last drawing fool you.
USA Mega’s Powerball website reports over 18 million players won a combined total of approximately $159.1 million. That’s a lot of transactions. And the more tickets that are purchased, the greater the chance that there will be multiple winners. Lottery officials expect at least 80 percent of the 292.2 million number combinations will be purchased before Wednesday’s drawing.
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“When the jackpots get big like this, it creates a frenzy”, said Brian Johnson, vice president of finance at Casey’s General Stores, which runs 1,900 stores in 14 states.
