The jackpot in the next draw for the Powerball lottery is set to reach a record $425million after no one won the main prize in Saturday night’s $325million draw.
The numbers were 22, 32, 37, 44 and 50, while the Powerball number was 34.
The jackpot of $325million was the fourth-largest in the history of the game – but as no one in the U.S. matched the winning numbers, the money will roll over until Wednesday.
If a single player had won the prize, he or she would have been able to claim a cash payout of $213million before taxes.
But the jackpot on Wednesday will be even bigger, with the headline figure reaching up to $425million – the biggest prize ever offered in the Powerball game.
Lottery officials have said they are unsure what effect the start of the Christmas shopping season will have had on ticket sales, which normally pick up in the days before high-dollar draws.
Black Friday shoppers in many cities earlier made brief detours into lottery retailers, drawn off task by the prospects of the huge jackpot.
Clyde Gadlin, 65, emerged from the bustle of holiday shoppers on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, to stop in at a 7-Eleven to buy his daily batch of lottery tickets, including Powerball.
For him, the game is a chance to dream and he tries not to let the long odds burst his bubble.
If Gadlin wins, he said he’d return to his grandfather’s farm in Heidelberg, Mississippi, where he spent part of his childhood.
‘I would go down there again and probably do a little bit of farming,’ he said, recalling the roaming deer and 380 acres of potatoes, corn, watermelons and sugar cane. Gadlin hasn’t been there for more than 20 years.
Unsuccessful players are likely to have another shot at a record-breaking pot of cash.
Since Powerball tickets doubled in price to $2 in January, the number of tickets sold has decreased, but the sales revenue has made up for it, increasing by about 35 per cent, said Norm Lingle, chairman of the Powerball board of directors.
And as the price went up, so did the jackpots, enticing thousands across the country to play.
‘Christmas is coming and $325million would come in handy,’ said Tim Abel, 63, who was buying a Powerball ticket at New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal. The Broadway stagehand said he usually plays whenever the jackpot goes over $100million.
