Drumroll, please.
After more than a week, there is still no winner for what is considered the biggest jackpot in lottery history — a $1.3 billion. Yes, that’s a B.
On Saturday night’s drawing, no one had a ticket with all the numbers for the Powerball drawing.
That means the jackpot, which would translate into an $806 million cash value, will roll over AGAIN with another drawing scheduled for Wednesday night. And lottery officials said they expect the buying frenzy for tickets to continue in the next several days. The last ticket will be sold at 9:59 p.m. Wednesday.
[No Powerball grand-prize winners, but tickets sold in Va., Md. win $1 million]
For many lottery ticket buyers, there was a sense of surprise Sunday morning when they awoke to find there was still no winner after no one claimed Saturday night’s grand prize which was roughly $949.8 million.
At the 24-hour Safeway grocery store on off Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda, the overnight shift and early morning shoppers chatted early Sunday morning about what they would do if they won the big jackpot.
One group of Safeway employees — about two dozen workers — said they went in on a pool to buy the $2 tickets for the lottery. They won $11 in one of the recent drawings and rolled it over into more tickets. They’re hopeful and realistic about their chances but still like to daydream.
“When we win, we’re going to hide our faces when we go claim the prize and hold up the big check and have the pay to order line read, ‘Job openings at Bradley Safeway,’” said Stephen Hertslet, a night stocker for 37 years at the store who lives in Boyds, Md.
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Officials at the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs Powerball, have said throughout the last week that they’ve not seen anything like this in terms of the buying frenzy and the skyrocketing jackpot. Powerball is played in 44 states, as well ast he District, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
In fact, signs aren’t prepared for a jackpot this big. The Associated Press reported that billboards in Texas and other parts of the country have to advertise the jackpot as $999 million because they’re not built to show billions.
The jackpot has been rolling over since Nov. 4 when it started at $40 million. There hasn’t been a big winner since then, although there have been smaller winners of $1 million and $2 million.
[Powerball numbers drawn for $900M jackpot]
Saturday’s winning numbers were 16, 19, 32, 34 and 57, with a Powerball number of 13.
And the chances of winning the big jackpot — not too high. There is a 1 in 292 million shot at matching all of the numbers.
