Powerball jackpot reaches $300M for Saturday
August 2nd, 2013 by Ric Hanson
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — This weekend’s Powerball jackpot will be worth at least $300 million, so the $2 tickets are likely to sell quickly. Saturday’s jackpot is still well below the record Powerball jackpot of $590.5 million that an 84-year-old Florida widow won in May.
But it’s big enough to attract casual players who only buy tickets when they think the payoff is big enough to be life-changing. The odds of matching all six numbers — five white balls plus the Powerball — are 1 in 175.2 million. Lottery officials expect plenty of tickets will be sold in the 43 states that offer Powerball. Tickets are also sold in Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands.