Jay Suthar sells Powerball tickets at Pine Liquors in Fort Washington, Md., Friday, Jan. 8, 2016.
Advertisement
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.
Jeffrey Miecznikowski, associate professor of biostatistics at the University at Buffalo, said in an email an American is roughly 25 times more likely to become the next president of the United States than to win at Powerball.
Jeff Holyfield, with the Michigan Lottery, said as of Saturday morning approximately 6.4 million tickets have been sold in Michigan for Saturday’s record $900 million Powerball drawing.
Friday the jackpot rose to $800 million, the highest lottery jackpot in history.
Some lottery officials believe the jackpot could reach $900 million dollars by Saturday night, but if no one hits the jackpot then it could rise to $1 billion. The record-largest jackpot was a $656 million Mega Millions jackpot won in March 2012.
The largest Powerball prize Pennsylvania has ever awarded was a $110.2 million cash-value jackpot claimed by a New Jersey couple in May, 2004.
The bigger prizes draw more players, who in turn make the jackpots even bigger.
If you chose to spend the $2 on your Powerball jackpot ticket hoping to win the $800 million jackpot, don’t forget to tune in either on an app or on television, to see what numbers get drawn.
The odds are one in 292.2 million. As the old, extremely overused adage goes, you have a better chance of being struck by lightning, but in this case that’s a ridiculous understatement.
It was divided among players from three different states, so the record for the biggest single victor is still held by Gloria Mackenzie of Zephryhills, Florida who won $590.5 million in 2013. This week, we’re looking at a few questions on this week’s historic Powerball lottery jackpot of $700 million.
Advertisement
“Well the odds aren’t very good but they’re a whole lot worse if you don’t have a ticket so if I’ve got a ticket, I’ve got a chance” said Rich McCarius, owner of Tom’s Party Store in East Lansing.
