The jackpot has ballooned since its November 4 starting point of $40 million.
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In the drawing Wednesday night, the jackpot stood at $500 million and with no victor drawn, the stage was set for the latest drawing just before 11 p.m. Eastern time Saturday.
Officials estimated shops nationwide sold $277 million worth of lottery tickets Friday and $400 million Saturday.
The potential winnings continue to increase as more millionaire-hopefuls buy tickets. With nearly unimaginable riches at stake, many Americans who normally shun lotteries joined the long lines of people buying tickets at retail stores across the country.
“We are OFFICIALLY #InSearchofaBILLIONAIRE ($1.3 BILLION)!” the lottery of the District of Columbia, where the U.S. capital is located, wrote on Twitter on Sunday. That was around the time the Multi-State Lottery Association changed the odds of winning from 175 million to one to 292.2 million.
The next drawing is Wednesday night.
If no one matches all the numbers Saturday night, the next drawing is expected to soar to $1.3 billion, according to officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game. But Wasserstein said he and his colleagues know too well the almost impossible odds to plunk down even $2 for a ticket.
A number of other prizes are up for grabs. The cash value after taxes would fall within the $806 million mark.
Gloria Mackenzie, 84, from Florida holds the record for the largest single Powerball jackpot win, $590.5 million, on May 18, 2013. It’s not clear if there’s ever been a lottery anywhere in the world where one person could win a billion dollars.
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Samir Akhter, the owner of Penn Branch Liquor, exchanges money for Powerball tickets, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016 in Washington. This week ticket purchases surged along with the size of the pot, driving the prize beyond the $900 million reported earlier.
