The Powerball jackpot has rolled up to $478 million in advance of Saturday night’s drawing.
The grand prize, which has an estimated lump-sum cash value of $330.6 million, is the largest since the record-breaking $1.6 billion draw in January and the fifth-largest in Powerball history. It comes after a run of 23 draws without a winner that began May 11.
Since Wednesday’s drawing, the Colorado lottery has sold just less than $1 million in Powerball tickets, according to spokeswoman Kelly Tabor.
Saturday, “it’s quite possible we could even double that, as many players, especially ‘jackpot chasers’ like to jump in at the last minute,” Tabor said in an e-mail.
To put that in context, a more typical (i.e., smaller jackpot) Powerball drawing brings in about $400,000 in sales, she said.
But — back to the prize money — just how much is $330.6 million?
It’s nearly equal making $159,000 an hour, 40 hours a week, for an entire year.
It’s enough to buy Mike Shanahan’s $22 million mansion 15 times over.
It’s more than three times the net worth of the Colorado Rapids. (But no, it’s not enough to buy the Denver Broncos, or the Nuggets, for that matter.)
For those looking to share the wealth, it’s enough to pay a year’s worth of in-state tuition ($11,091) for all of the University of Colorado’s 26,426 undergraduates and still have $37.5 million left over to offset the extra costs dealt to out-of-state students.
If it were divided among Colorado’s estimated population of 5.5 million people, each person would come away with $60.
All that said, your odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292 million. Overall odds of winning any prize are 1 in 24.9, according to the Colorado Lottery. One player in Colorado won a $100,000 share of Wednesday’s jackpot on a ticket purchased in Commerce City.
The numbers drawn Wednesday were: 10, 47, 50, 65, 68. The Powerball was 24, and the Power Play was 2.
