Powerball jackpot hits $500 million

A Powerball jackpot of $500 million to be announced Wednesday has sparked a surge of ticket sales in the state, according to the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery.

Ticket sales for games such as Powerball will help the lottery for a third straight year raise more than half a billion dollars for education.

Lottery officials said the chances of winning this jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.

A solo victor from Wednesday night’s draw could claim the pre-tax $500m prize through an annuity over 29 years or in a single pre-tax payout of $306m (£209m). And it’s also more hard to win the second prize of $1 million that goes to players who get all the numbers right except for the Powerball. Players select five numbers from 1 to 69 and one Powerball number from 1 to 26, or they can purchase a ticket with randomly selected numbers.

Wednesday night’s drawing will be the 18th drawing since the last grand prize victor was announced on November 4. The state of Wisconsin has sold more than $2.5 million worth of tickets since Sunday. It’s the largest lottery jackpot in almost a year and the sixth-largest ever in North America. Friday’s drawing will feature a $165 million jackpot since no one correctly picked Tuesday’s winning numbers of 1, 4, 36, 48 and 57 with the Mega Ball of 13.

Wednesday’s drawing will be at 10:59 p.m. broadcasted live from Tallahassee, Fla.

If you opt to pick your own numbers, you might want to include 8, 54, 14, 39 and 13. That prize was shared by three winning players in North Carolina, Texas and Puerto Rico.

The current jackpot has a cash value of $275 million. In fact, a person is more likely to get struck by lightning or get bitten by a shark than win the lottery.

The $500 million jackpot is one of the biggest in USA history.

Rentschler’s Ice Cream Parlor in Ringtown became a revolving door for people buying lottery tickets.