The Powerball Lottery Jackpot topped $500 million on Tuesday. Ticket sales are brisk for the Wednesday drawing.
UPDATE — Powerball drawing results for Wednesday , November 28, 2012:
5, 23, 16, 22, 29 and the Powerball number is 6
PowerBall is run by the Multi-State Lottery Association — a non-profit, government-benefit association owned and operated by its member lotteries. Each MUSL member offers one or more of the games administered by MUSL. All profits are retained by the state lottery and are used to fund projects approved by the state legislatures.
Illinois began selling tickets for MegaMillions and Powerball in Illinois jurisdictions on January 31, 2010.
On March 25, 2012, Illinois became the first jurisdiction to allow internet lottery sales.
On January 15, 2012, the price of a Powerball ticket was raised to $2.
The official cutoff time for ticket sales is 10 pm ET/9 pm CT with some jurisdictions cutting sales earlier.
The record Powerball jackpot is now even bigger. Powerball officials say they’ve boosted the jackpot for Wednesday’s drawing to $500 million from the previously posted $425 million. Huge ticket sales nationally are pushing the payout higher.
Merle Butler of Red Bud, Illinois took home almost $119 million from a Mega Millions winning ticket in March 2012. He held one of three winning tickets sharing a Mega Millions jackpot, which was a world lottery record of $656 million.
One Powerball ticket has about a 1 in 175 million chance of winning.