Powerball jackpot jumps to $1.5B ahead of Wednesday’s drawing
NEW YORK — The Powerball jackpot swelled to $1.5 billion on Tuesday morning, a day ahead of the next drawing.
It was already the single largest lottery prize ever, and the hype has sent ticket sales skyrocketing -- driving the grand prize higher still.
The next drawing will be Wednesday night at 10:59 pm ET.
This jackpot first broke into the top 10 largest of all time when it hit $400 million on January 3. It hit the billion dollar mark about a week after that.
If there's no winner in Wednesday's drawing, the pot will continue to climb into unheard of amounts.
The previous record U.S. lottery jackpot was a Mega Millions game in March 2012 that paid out $656 million.
The current cash payout is $930 million. Only a ticket holder who opts to collect the jackpot in annual payments will collect the entire $1.5 billion.
The odds of winning are 1 in 292 million, and the chances of winning the jackpot got slimmer when Powerball implemented a rule change in October 2015.
Powerball is sold in 44 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
