Powerball tickets are seen at a liquor store in Washington, July 19, 2023. (FILE photo REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo)
Need a new car? Want to buy your mother a house in the hills? Feel like taking off a year and touring Europe? You might be able to if you feel you’re lucky.
The jackpot for Saturday evening’s Powerball lottery has reached a whopping $1 billion, the 13th-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history.
Saturday’s drawing will be held at 7:59 p.m., with tickets sold after 7:05 p.m. only eligible for the following drawing, on Monday.
To date, there have been 38 drawings since the last time someone had a ticket matching all six numbers in the multi-state game. That includes Wednesday’s drawing, when six tickets were sold with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game.
Those tickets were all sold outside California and were worth either $1 million or $2 million, depending upon whether the players utilized the Power Play option, where, for an additional $1 per play, a ticket with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, is worth $2 million.
In case you bought a ticket and forgot to look, the numbers drawn on Wednesday were 9, 12, 22, 41, 61, and the Powerball number was 25. The estimated jackpot was $861 million.
The largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history was the $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot won by Edwin Castro in November 2022. That ticket was sold at Joe’s Service Center in Altadena.
But in reality, the odds of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number are 1 in 292.2 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. The overall chance of winning a prize is 1 in 24.9.
The Powerball game is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
–City News Service