The Powerball jackpot continues to grow.
Wednesday night’s drawing produced no willing tickets so the jackpot will grow to $415 million for Saturday’s drawing.
The next Powerball drawing will be Saturday at 11 pm ET on WCCT. And if there’s no winning ticket, it will mark the 19th consecutive drawing without one — so the jackpot will keep growing.
The $415 million pot is already approaching some of the largest lottery jackpots in history. Between the last three drawings, it grew by $100 million.
Powerball tickets cost $2 each, and to claim the top prize it has to match all six numbers — five white balls and the red Powerball number.
It’s not easy. The odds are about 1 in 292 million.
Neil Nelan, a professor of mathematics at Quinnipiac University, said about the odds, “Five balls are picked from a vat of 69 white balls; you have a have a 1 in 11,238,513 chance of doing that. Then one ball is picked from a vat of 26 balls (the power ball) so you have a 1 in 26 time 11,238,513 = 292,201,338 chance of winning the big prize with a single ticket. Some comparison numbers: You have a 1 in 64,706 chance of dying from a bee or wasp sting.”
