Which means the prize is now .3 billion, or an $806 million cash payout – based on Powerball estimates. Saturday’s draw would have been worth Dollars 558 million in cash.
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The Saturday night UK national lottery draw attracted many more players than normal, and came the same day as Americans flocked to get tickets for a record jackpot of more than $900 million in the United States’ Powerball draw.
The odds to win are one in 292.2 million. Such a huge jackpot was just what officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game, hoped for last fall when they changed the odds of matching all the Powerball numbers, from about one in 175 million to one in 292.2 million.
Roughly 95 percent of Powerball tickets are computer-generated quick picks, so people’s favorite numbers aren’t really a factor.
The largest previous jackpot totaled $656 million and was split among three winning Mega Millions tickets in 2012. The record-breaking jackpot saw more people buying tickets as the grand prize skyrocketed in worth faster than the Powerball site could keep up.
Gloria Mackenzie, 84, from Florida holds the record for the largest single Powerball jackpot win, $590. Since then ticket sales have only taken off.
The jackpot for the twice-weekly game started at $40 million on November 4 and has been growing ever since.
The U.S. saw sales of $277 million on Friday alone and more than $400 million were expected Saturday, according to Gary Grief, the executive director of the Texas Lottery.
The stats are still coming in, but long lines and an increase in Powerball sales are good early indicators that sales were broken in the multiple states where Powerball is played and tickets are sold. Currently, there is one person who has won the Powerball and other lotteries seven times.
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Since there were no Powerball grand prize jackpot winners, and no one matched all of the winning numbers, the jackpot continues to rocket.
