Carry on dreaming: $1.3bn Powerball jackpot as lottery rolls over again

No ticket matched all six Powerball numbers following Saturday night’s drawing for a record jackpot of nearly $950 million, lottery officials said, boosting the expected payout for the next drawing to a whopping $1.3 billion. The winning numbers — disclosed live on television and online — were 16-19-32-34-57 and the Powerball number 13. All six numbers must be correct to win, although the first five can be in any order. The odds to win the largest lottery prize in U.S. history were one in 292.2 million.

Almost everyone chooses the lump sum, but you do take a pretty significant hit.

Sonja Peterson of Minneapolis

Officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game, said they expected about 75 per cent of the possible number combinations would have been bought for Saturday night’s drawing. The U.S. saw sales of $277 million on Friday alone and more than $400 million were expected Saturday, according to Gary Grief, the executive director of the Texas Lottery. The record jackpot lured an unprecedented frenzy of purchases.

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