Tuesday morning the estimated jackpot for Wednesday’s Powerball lottery surged to a record-breaking $1.5 billion, making it the largest lottery prize in history.
“If someone were to take the cash value of that, they would have to scrape by at about $868 million cash,” Gary Grief, Executive Director of Texas Lottery and Power ball Chair said. “So definitely, we are in record territory.”
According to Grief, a large portion of the money from this power ball jackpot will stay in Texas.
“With this Powerball jackpot alone, since the last time we had a winner, November 4th, we have generated more than $50 million for public schools,” Grief said. “That’s $50 million that stays right here in the state of Texas.”
However, it’s not just the state’s public education system seeing the economic impact of the power ball. Grief said more than 17,000 retailer locations across the state are reporting an uptick in business as well.
“I know you’ve seen places where there are lines of people who are waiting to buy their Powerball tickets,” Grief said. “Well they are buying lots of other products while they wait. They are buying their sodas, they are buying their magazines, they are buying their candy etc. So it’s a win fall not just for public education here in Texas, but also for our economy.”
The Texas Lottery Commission said they are seeing more participation from people across the state than ever more, many of that is from office pools.
On Tuesday morning, sales in Texas were selling at almost $16,000 dollars’ worth of power ball tickets every minute. The Texas Lottery Commission expects that number to increase exponentially as we get closer to Wednesday’s drawing.
The drawing for $1.5 billion will take place on Wednesday at 10:12 p.m., and sales will be cut off at 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Each power ball ticket is worth $2. If a winner is not selected Wednesday night, the jackpot prize will get even bigger for the next drawing on Saturday evening.