Powerball soars to $800 million as states see strong sales

The largest US lottery jackpot in history is at stake in Saturday night’s Powerball drawing – $900 million. Players may select their own numbers using a Powerball playslip, or they may opt for computer-selected quick picks.

November was the last time a jackpot victor emerged from Powerball, which is run by the Multi-State Lottery Association. Only if no one wins Saturday’s jackpot.

“We have seen sales increase every hour today, and expect that trend to continue as we near the 10 PM EST deadline to buy tickets”. Lottery officials recommend that if people pool their money, they put in writing how they plan to split the prize – since it’s easy for misunderstandings to crop up when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.

The U.S. saw sales of $277 million on Friday alone and more than $400 million are expected Saturday, according to Gary Grief, the executive director of the Texas Lottery.

A person purchase Powerball lottery tickets from a newsstand Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016, in Philadelphia.

If no one wins, lottery officials expect the next drawing to be $1.3 billion.

Each ticket costs $2, but the odds to win the jackpot is 1 in 292,201,338.

The previous record North American jackpot payout for any lottery game was in March 2012, when $656 million was won in the multi-state Mega Millions draw.

But Grief says the chances of no one hitting all five initial numbers and the Powerball number is growing slim because by the time sales close Saturday night, officials estimate around 75 percent of all possible combinations “will have been wagered on”.

Powerball sales have soared since Wednesday, when nobody won an estimated $500m jackpot.

“It’s not like players ever had a great shot at winning a jackpot, but by lengthening the odds, you take odds that were really, really small before, and now they’re almost twice as small as they were before”.