Check your tickets: the lucky potential winner of Saturday’s jackpot could nab $1.8 billion — the second-largest jackpot in United States lottery history. According to Matt Strawn, Powerball Product Group Chair and Iowa Lottery CEO, “Excitement is building.”
Should someone win on Saturday they can either get an annuitized prize estimated at $1.80 billion given out over 29 increasing payments or a lump sum of $826.4 million — both before taxes.
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But if you bought a ticket, you may want to hold off on planning for that new mansion: the odds of winning a Powerball prize are 1 in 24.9, and your chances of getting the jackpot are even steeper at 1 in 292.2 million.
How to play
Tickets for the Powerball are $2 and can be purchased in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
To play, you select five numbers on your ticket between 1 and 69 for the white balls, then select one number between 1 and 26 for the red Powerball. If you don’t want to choose your own fate, you can have the lottery terminal randomly pick your numbers.
Saturday’s drawing is set for 10:59 ET, and is also held Monday and Wednesday at the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee. A livestream can be seen here.
What should winners do?
Lawyers who spoke to Straight Arrow News before the big drawing advise winners to take their ticket somewhere extremely safe — and not tell anyone about it.
But can one stay anonymous after winning big? It depends. Eleven states will let Powerball winners remain anonymous with no issues, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association.
“A lot of states have passed laws allowing anonymity to Powerball lottery winners,” David Walls, a lawyer who’s represented several lottery winners, told Straight Arrow News. “Some states have a modified system, and other states have no privacy laws at all with respect to winners.”
Those in the states without laws still have some options, though: one of them is setting up a trust or LLC to claim the winnings.
