A customer, right, waits for his Powerball lottery ticket at a convenience store in Chicago on Saturday, May 18, 2013. A little more than a year after three tickets split a world-record lottery prize, the jackpot for Saturday’s Powerball drawing was nearing historic territory. Should nobody pick the correct six numbers, the prize money will roll over to next week’s drawing and almost certainly eclipse the $656 million doled out to winners in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland in the Mega Millions game in March 2012.DES MOINES, Iowa – It’s all about the odds.
With the majority of possible combinations of Powerball numbers in play, someone is almost sure to win the game’s highest jackpot during Saturday night’s drawing, a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars – and that’s after taxes.
The problem, of course, is those same odds just about guarantee the lucky person won’t be you.
The chances of winning the estimated $600 million prize remain astronomically high: 1 in 175.2 million. That’s how many different ways you can combine the numbers when you play. But lottery officials estimate about 80 percent of those possible combinations have been purchased, so now’s the time to buy.
“This would be the roll to get in on,” said Iowa Lottery CEO Terry Rich. “Of course there’s no guarantee, and that’s the randomness of it, and the fun of it.”