To win the jackpot, a ticket holder has to match all numbers on five white balls and one red ball selected at the twice weekly Powerball draw – next due on Wednesday at 10:59 pm (0359 GMT Thursday). The Powerball jackpot has grown to over 1 billion dollars, and the drawing is still two days away.
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Between Jan. 6 and Saturday’s drawings, more than $900 million in Powerball tickets were sold.
Saturday’s winning numbers were 16-19-32-34-57-13.
Powerball is played in 44 states as well as the District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
Even the cash option is valued at almost $1 billion [$930 million to be exact]. The website now shows the winning numbers, but Hoosiers can’t enter second chance drawings until traffic slows down.
The 25% Federal tax deduction from the lump sum would ding an additional $139.5 million, leaving the victor with $418.5 million.
About $2.9 million were toward $2 ticket sales, which is the basis for calculating how many tickets were sold (hint: divide by 2!).
Powerball officials will allow you to purchase all possible combinations, but it isn’t a smart thing to do. Officials said the victor – who was not identified – can claim the ticket at TIoga Downs in Nichols, or at any of the Lottery’s Customer Service centers statewide. With odds of 292 million to 1, I expect to be sitting at my computer on January 14, doing my job and dreaming of winning the lottery the next time there’s a really big jackpot.
Lottery winnings are free from income tax in Canada, even if they’re won in another country, Vern Krishna, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and executive director of the CGA Tax & International Research Centre, said in an interview.
“We’ve never been at these levels”, said Grief, whose state lottery is part of the Multi-State Lottery Association that runs Powerball.
If you’re reading this, and now in possession of a lottery ticket you wouldn’t have normally purchased, you are precisely the type of person the Powerball system was hoping to engage.
The Iowa Lottery reports fielding some inquires from people who believe that once a jackpot grows so huge, it shouldn’t go to just one victor.
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“In general, people do not comprehend probability very well, especially when it has to do with the probability for unlikely events”, said Prof Finn. A year earlier, it totaled $2.7 billion.
