The jackpot for Saturday’s drawing stands at $415 million for the annuity, or $269.7 million for the cash option.
Advertisement
Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot was $361,500,000 and produced over 172,800 winning tickets in NY.
Here are some things to keep in mind about Saturday’s drawing and future jackpots.
The jackpot starts at $40 million and grows with each bi-weekly drawing – one on Wednesdays and the other on Saturdays – until a winning ticket pops up. (Most people just choose to get random numbers.) There are various levels of payouts, but to win the ultimate jackpot, you have to match all five numbers plus the Powerball.
Even with such bad odds, a winning ticket or tickets will eventually be sold. In January, more than 75 percent of the possible 292.2 million combinations were sold for the astronomical prize. Click on “lucky retailers” if you want to buy your ticket from a spot that paid out large amounts of prizes to players in the last calendar year.
Advertisement
Powerball is played in 44 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The jackpot would still have to increase further before any victor could trouble Gloria MacKenzie of Florida as the largest single prize victor in lottery history. The only states in the continental United States that does not participate in Powerball is Nevada, Utah, Mississippi and Alabama.
