Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Tonight’s jackpot soars over $535 million
Sweet dreams, Powerball players.
State lottery officials said Friday that ticket sales for Saturday night’s drawing have pushed the Powerball jackpot to $535 million. If you’d like your winnings in cash, that comes to a cool $340 million. That makes Saturday night’s extravaganza the game’s fifthlargest jackpot on record.
The jackpot initially rolled to a $510 million value, or $324.2 million cash, after Wednesday’s drawing, which produced a $150,000 Powerball with Power Play winner in Luzerne County.
“With a jackpot above the half-billion dollar mark, Powerball tickets are selling like solar eclipse glasses – but tickets are much easier to find in stores,” said Lottery Executive Director Drew Svitko, who noted that this is the game’s largest jackpot since the runup to the world-record jackpot in early 2016. That historic prize totaled nearly $1.6 billion.
Svitko reminded players to please play responsibly. Tickets will remain on sale in Pennsylvania until 9:59 p.m. Saturday. The televised drawing takes place at 11 p.m. in Tallahassee, Fla.
The Pennsylvania Lottery has sold 17 Powerball jackpot-winning tickets since joining the multistate game 15 years ago this summer. The largest Powerball prize Pennsylvania has ever snagged was a $110.2 million cash-value jackpot claimed by a New Jersey couple in May 2004. The state’s largest Powerball group win was a $107.5 million cash jackpot shared by 48 transit workers from the Philadelphia area in April 2012.
Powerball is sold in 44 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In Pennsylvania, tickets are sold until 9:59 p.m. on drawing nights, Wednesday and Saturday.