Emag.co.uk Entertainment News Leader
Someone may win $800 million jackpot Saturday night as the Powerball sales have crossed all the earlier records. If no one wins matching the numbers, the next draw may cross the milestone of $1 billion.
According to the Multi-State Lottery Association, the lottery officials too are not sure what will happen this weekend with record drawing as approximately 65 percent of the possible number combinations are to be bought and the percentage could rise if the estimate of jackpot is increased further.
Executive director of the Texas Lottery, Gary Grief, said they have never seen in past jackpots of such kind and its a totally new experience for them. This time all the experts need to throw out the logic and statistics.
On November 4 the Powerball jackpot was $40 million and now it has gone to $800 million as no one won it. After Saturday, if no one wins again, the jackpot to soar past $1 billion.
Lottery officials have hoped such kind of huge jackpot for last fall when the odds of matching were changed from one in 175 million to one in 292.2 million to make winning tougher.
It is usual practice the bigger prizes draw attract more players and this makes the jackpots bigger and further bigger.
In Iowa some of the stores said to have run out of paper for tickets as the sales of Powerball tickets have increased several folds.
Economics and psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, George Loewenstein, said buying a Powerball ticket is in fact a short-term license for people to dream bit and not buying a chance at winning such a huge wealth.
