Powerball officials say the jackpot has climbed to an estimated $600 million, making it the largest prize in the game’s history and the world’s second largest lottery prize.
Lottery officials say the prize is growing quickly Friday because so many people have been purchasing the $2 tickets. The jackpot has grown by an estimated $236 million since the last drawing on Wednesday.
The last jackpot was won on March 30, so it’s been growing for about six weeks. The next drawing is Saturday night.
The largest jackpot ever was a $656 million Mega Millions prize won in March 2012. The prize was split three ways with winners in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland.
Odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are about 1 in 175 million.
(AP)
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5 Responses
If chances are 1 in 175 million why wouldn’t any person with that kind of money but 180 million tickets he’ll be sure to win
Making neder – IYH if I win, I will give 1/2 to Tzedakah!
It’s almost impossible to buy the 180,000,000 tickets since each lottery machine can only produce a certain amount of tickets a day. You’d have to have exclusive use of hundreds of lottery machines to produce that number of tickets.
The powerball is $2 per ticket that’s $360mil less than $600mil after taxes. Not a good investment at all.
All of these games have a catch to them. Like #4 said, there are taxes and one large lump sum payment which drastically reduces the “take home” pay. Some of these Jewish Chinese Auctions operate in a similar fashion. They may advertise a grand prize of $1,000,000 but that too includes buying the most expensive ticket of $1,000 and taking off for large sum amount and taxes. Or how about winning a free car, which in truth is a lease up to $10,000 total. The small print applies to the secular lotto as well as these Jewish auctions. But note that its tzedakah to give to those auctions, which should be valued in and of itself.