Will Saturday night’s drawing finally produce a winner?
The current jackpot for the national Powerball lottery has hit $415 million after 18 drawings without a big winner.
This pot has been growing since March 2, after a 67-year-old man in Florida claimed the previous Powerball jackpot of $291.4 million.
Powerball numbers are drawn each week on Wednesday and Saturday nights at 10:59 pm ET.
Now that the current jackpot has reached over $400 million, it’s made the list of the largest lottery jackpots of all time.
If no one wins after Saturday’s drawing, the jackpot could go up to $525 million, according to the Texas Lottery.
The last jackpot to reach this level eventually grew into the largest in U.S. history — $1.5 billion.
That one garnered a lot of attention. In January, three winning tickets were sold in Chino Hills, California; Munford, Tennessee; and Melbourne Beach, Florida.
While the jackpot is advertised as being worth $415 million, a winner only gets that amount if they pick the annuity — the money is paid out over 29 years.
The lump sum option, which is more popular, has a cash value of $269.7 million.
As the pot grows, more and more people are likely to rush out to pick their numbers. But the odds of winning aren’t great.
Individual tickets have only a 1 in 292 million chance of having the jackpot-winning six-digit combination.
Even just guessing the Powerball number, which will get you $4, is hard — the odds are 1 in 38.
