A billboard written in Spanish displayes the $800 million Powerball jackpot, Friday, Jan. 8, 2016, in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami.
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The store selling the winning ticket gets a share of the prize – it could be as much as $1 million if a single winning ticket is sold, according to the California Lottery.
Grief says Powerball sales on Thursday were double the previous record for that day and that it’s possible the estimated jackpot could rise again before the drawing. “Do the best I can to help people out”, Lopez said.
One hopeful woman said she’d provide for her loved ones.
She doesn’t usually buy lottery tickets, but she felt compelled after hearing the jackpot total on the radio, she said. No one has won Powerball’s biggest prize since November 4.
If someone wins, they can take $800 million over 30 years or grab a $496 million lump sum upfront. The current pot has rolled over 18 times since someone last won the powerball in early November.
If you find yourself clutching the winning numbers after Saturday’s 10:59 p.m. drawing, then Brian Simon of Alliance Financial Group recommends you get a team together.
Powerball sales in Georgia averaged just over $2 million a week in fiscal year 2015.
Ticketholders have a 1 in 292.2 million chance of winning.
However, many customers will wait until the morning before the deadline to buy a ticket, she added, so she expects a hectic morning rush today.
The possibility of winning an entire Powerball jackpot tends to bring out the generosity in folks buying a ticket. Lottery officials recommend that if people pool their money, they put in writing how they plan to split the prize – since it’s easy for misunderstandings to crop up when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.
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Just ask Stevenson Ranch resident Yosvin De Leon, who joined dozens of residents and commuters Friday afternoon at Valencia Liquors in Newhall in hopes of grabbing the winning ticket for the record $800 million jackpot. It probably makes sense to go for the whole bit at once because if you’ve already had a once-in-a-lifetime experience, you just never know what could happen to you tomorrow. A victor there, Prante said, would take home about $260 million.
