The biggest lottery jackpot in U.S. history is up for grabs tonight.
Ticket sales across the nation – including Delaware – have pushed tonight’s Powerball jackpot to a record breaking $1.5 billion.
Delaware Lottery Director Vernon Kirk says that’s keeping lottery staff busy- including the workers who supply retailers with paper for lottery tickets.
“The last thing we want to do is have a retailer have to turn away a customer because they don't have enough ticket stock to print a ticket,” he says. “So we have literally an army of sales representatives running around the state making sure the ticket stock is appropriate in each location.”
The last Powerball drawing on January 9 marked the 19th without a grand prize winner and that’s bringing out even the most casual players.
Kirk adds that sales for last Saturday’s drawing in Delaware were $3.75 million.
“And the state would get approximately one third of that or a little over a million dollars so that's good for the state but at the same time the retailers make a commission, they’re getting new customers who maybe haven’t been in that store before but they might get more familiar with the store and maybe come back later for something else unrelated to the lottery for that store.”
The odds of matching all six Powerball numbers in tonight’s drawing are 1 in 292.2 million.
To win, players must match five numbers plus the Powerball number.
Delaware has not had a Powerball winner since May 2013 when an anonymous ticket holder split a $50 million jackpot
