$1.6B IS A LOTTO MONEY!

P’ball pot a record

This jackpot’s one in a billion. The prize for Saturday’s Powerball drawing has soared to a mind-blowing $1.6 billion — the largest in US lottery history, officials said Friday.

The astronomical sum comes as Powerball reaches its 40th consecutive drawing since Aug. 3 with no grand-prize winner, with the jackpot rolling over repeatedly, lotto officials said.

Players can buy tickets up until 10 p.m. Eastern time Saturday, with each ducat having a 1-in292 million chance of winning.

Only two other lotto jackpots have ever climbed higher than $1.5 billion in the US, including a $1.54 billion Mega Millions prize in 2018 and a $1.59 billion Powerball prize in 2016.

In 2016, the previous highest jackpot was split among ticket holders in California, Florida and Tennessee.

New York state has had an average of 321,144 winners of any size prize per drawing over the past five draws, but on Wednesday there were 548,735, 71% higher than the average, according to Powerball.net.

A single winner of Saturday’s jackpot has two options: taking the $1.6 billion prize in annual payouts over 29 years minus federal, state and local taxes; or collecting an immediate lump sum of $782 million minus taxes.

Nobody matched the numbers 02-11-22-35-60 with a Powerball of 23, in Wednesday’s most recent drawing, on Wednesday.

But 16 ticket holders matched all five white balls, winning $1 million each, according to lottery officials. In total, 7.2 million tickets won a total of $74.9 million in cash prizes from the drawing.

The last winning Powerball ticket, for $206.9 million, was sold in Pennsylvania for the Aug. 3 drawing.

Previously, the longest non-jackpot run in Powerball history ended on Oct. 4, 2021, when a single player in California won $699.8 million on the 41st drawing.

Powerball drawings are broadcast live Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. and are livestreamed at Powerball.com.