The huge jackpot has forced many convenience stores to bring in extra clerks to keep lines moving, hoping that people wanting Powerball tickets will decide to also buy a snack or something else in the store.
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Lottery officials expect at least 80 percent of the 292.2 million number combinations will be purchased before Wednesday’s drawing. A “Power Play” option that multiplies non-jackpot prizes by up to five times may be added to any Powerball play for only $1. The largest Powerball prize was a Dollars 590.5 million jackpot won by a Florida woman in May 2013. That was technically correct, but officials fixed the glitch by the time the jackpot grew to $1.4 billion on Monday. Powerball tickets are sold in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
In this photo made with a fisheye lens a clerk hands a patron his $10 worth of chances for the upcoming Powerball drawing on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016, in Cranberry Township, Pa. The Powerball jackpot has reached a record $900 million, with the drawing Saturday night. And nearly all winners opt for the lump sum.
A regular ticket costs $2 – about the same as a gallon of gas.
Unfortunately, there are lots of stories about lottery winners who blow through their winnings only to end up paupers just a few years later. Officials don’t track which numbers are most popular because so many are randomly generated.
But the $1.4 billion prize is too large to fit on the electronic lottery billboards, including the signs in Allen County, Indiana.
Even the Hoosier Lottery website was down most of Sunday because of high traffic.
A $1 million and $2 million ticket were also sold in CT, according to the Hartford Courant.
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Gary Grief, executive director of the Texas Lottery, responded that Powerball prominently displays both the annuity and cash prize figures. “It only takes one ticket to win”.
