Powerball jackpot climbs to $1.725 billion: How late are tickets being sold?

LOS ANGELES — Lotto fever is once again gripping Southern California and much of the nation, with Wednesday night’s multi-state Powerball jackpot at $1.725 billion, the second-largest lottery prize in U.S. history.

For the 33rd consecutive time, no tickets were sold matching all six numbers in Monday’s drawing. A ticket with five numbers, but missing the Powerball number, was sold at a convenience store in Lake Forest and was worth $1,064,543, the California Lottery reported.

The last time there was a jackpot winner in the Powerball game was July 19, when someone won $1.08 billion with a ticket sold at a downtown Los Angeles mini-market. That was the seventh-largest jackpot in U.S. history.

The other lottery jackpot: Mega Millions drawing’s top prize hits $48 million

The largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history is $2.040 billion for the Nov. 7, 2022, Powerball drawing. The Powerball game began in 1992, and is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.

The odds of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number are 1 in 292.2 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game. The overall chance of winning a prize is 1 in 24.9.

Buying tickets at a store where tickets with large jackpots have been sold in the past will not increase a purchaser’s chance of winning a jackpot, according to USC mathematics professor Ken Alexander.

“The chance that a given place will sell a winning lottery ticket is just related to how many tickets they sell,” Alexander told City News Service.

However, players wanting a better chance of avoiding sharing the jackpot should choose numbers that aren’t selected as often, Alexander said. Lottery players frequently choose the date of their birthdays as one of their numbers, so numbers higher than 31 would be played less, Alexander said.

Wednesday’s drawing will take place at 7:59 p.m., but ticket sales will be cut off one hour before that.

Source: Orange County Register