Momtaz Parvin pulls Powerball lottery tickets from the printer at her store in Oklahoma City, Friday, Jan. 8, 2016, as the multi-state jackpot reaches $800 million.
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The record-breaking Powerball jackpot is making headlines across the United States, and while few, if any, of the ticket buyers will benefit from the $1.5 billion prize, public schools across Idaho surely will. A person’s odds of winning the jackpot are about 1 in 292.2 million.
Dreams of riches inspired a flurry of ticket-buyers, sending this weekend’s Powerball jackpot surging to $800 million even faster than lottery officials expected. If you’ve never played Powerball before but want a chance at the mega win this time around, it’s very simple.
Roughly 95 percent of Powerball tickets are computer-generated picks, so people’s favorite numbers aren’t really a factor.
“So far today, players have bought more than 1 million tickets”, he said.
Last week online ticketing site theLotter.com reported a surge in Canadians purchasing Powerball tickets online.
The cash option for that jackpot is $868 million. The top IRS tax bracket is 39.6 percent so the victor would start with almost $562 million after some taxes. The Powerball jackpot has grown to over 1 billion dollars.
The previous record for a US lottery jackpot was $656 million.
The amount of the current jackpot is so large, the South Dakota Lottery is unable to display it on their jackpot signs.
Some retailers scoring the biggest sales are in states bordering the handful that do not participate in the Powerball, he said. “If you are planning to play, remember that tickets will be sold in Pennsylvania until 9:59 p.m. on Wednesday evening”.
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Forty-four US states take part in the Powerball along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
