INDIANAPOLIS -- It's an astonishing number. The Powerball jackpot is now at an estimated $1.3 billion dollars. Yes, you read that right. $1.3 BILLION.
No ticket matched all six Powerball numbers following Saturday's drawing for a record jackpot of nearly $950 million, lottery officials said.
The winning numbers 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.
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Since Nov. 4, the Powerball jackpot has grown from its $40 million starting point as no one has won the jackpot.
Such a huge jackpot was just what officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game, hoped for last fall when they changed the odds of matching all the Powerball numbers, from about one in 175 million to one in 292.2 million.
By making it harder to win a jackpot, the tougher odds made the ever-larger prizes inevitable.
The record jackpot lured an unprecedented frenzy of purchases. Andrea Smith, 30, said Saturday that she already had spent more than she usually does on Powerball tickets.
"I bought four yesterday, and I usually never buy any," said Smith, manager of Bucky's gas station and convenience store in Omaha, Nebraska. She's not alone, saying the store sold "about $5,000 worth of tickets yesterday. Usually on a Friday, we might sell $1,200 worth."
Powerball is played in 44 states as well as the District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The next Powerball drawing is Wednesday.
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