I just bought a couple of tickets for this drawing.

700 MILLION PLUS!!! I'm RICH B*TCH!!!

There  is bound to be more than 1 jackpot winner.....one of them will be me!!!!

"Players should expect that the jackpot will increase again one or more times before the Saturday drawing, and unless standing in long lines can be considered "fun", players should buy their tickets early." 

Yeah, Todd, they are low balling it for sure. It will beat the old record cash jackpot easily.

Hell, they know from last record jackpot sales amount that players can push this thing to around 531,900,000 cash or 869,100,000 annuity!

WOW!  Thought somebody won it last night.  700 million dallas?  God dam!  Now I now it will roll into the billion dallas!  I'm telling ya, this is the time!  I wouldn't mind taking the annuity on this giant of a prize.  My daughter can claim the rest of the money after I die.  I just need the starting 5 million dallas to start my thing and live happily ever after.  I can't have the pressure of dealing with so much money, trusting financial advisers with it, investors, etc. right off the bat.   Would give me a heart attack.  I need some heavy education in finances first.

 I have noticed that when another top 25 jackpot win is made then Andrew Jackson "Jack" Whitaker will be pushed out. Either MM or PB. Jack is at #25 West Virginia 315.million.

 David Lee Edwards was overtaken a few record jackpots ago.

 Back to this Record-Breaking jackpot. $700 million!!!

 I am sure that this upcoming exchange of posts between Todd, Terry Rich, and us lottery members will include a few words about this history making activity.

What a trillion dollars looks like with double stacked pallets. Wow, I can find room for it don't worry lol. 7 packets wide by 16 packets deep, with each packet being $10,000. 7 x 16 = 112 packets per layer 112 x $10,000 = $1,120,000 per layer. Also shows several other examples of a million, billion, etc. Hope to hit the Powerball soon for at least 5 pallets of almost a half of a billion lol. The little guy on the bottom left is an average sized person lol. A FARM of money baby! http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/calculations.html

^{it could be one or multiple winners} 

Goooooo GOOOOOO POWERBALL !!! U CAN DO IT! 

I am about to have a POWERBALL FEVER !!!! :)

This is great.Somebody going to win soon,a ton of money.Well I had the powerball number,that was 12bucks,come on lottery gods,work ur magic 4me.Good Luck,my lotto post peeps.

 How I will look when i see my ticket is a winner. Then at 1:00am when i find out im the single winner of the biggest jackpot of all time. Thank you for everyone for their donations towards my many Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, Bugatti Veyrons, and the big ass garage with a few bedrooms in it to store them. A month and a half in the bahamas should get me used to the 1% life real well.

I want a smart car

That jackpot is huge. I don't want to share with everyone! Sharing is caring what people say , but not in this case.  If i do win ,  i might have to move to another country , to get away from the leaches ( family members , so called friends)!!

Don't, they have very little crumple zone.

In my Opinion I think that If powerball hit 500 million and no one wins, Money should be spread among second tier. Instead of one person winning the whole thing to him or herself. We all bought tickets to boost the sales, so it's only fair if everyone that bought a ticket get its share. Good luck to everyone

The website that sells tickets to residents from abroad is currently "down for maintenance". 

Quite possible they are experiencing an enormous amount of traffic.

$700 Million Wooo Hoo!!!!   

wow! Quite the announcement!

Heres wishing for a blessed winner .

Cold cash in hand .

Warm heart in deeds!

Haha, too bad Alabama won't see a penny of this. Gonna be a lot of Bama tags at the Pilot store in Tallapossa, GA.

I fell you

Please tell me you're kidding. You think people are shelling out their money so 700 people can become millionaires? If you really want fair then everyone who bought tickets should get something back. But because we're adults and not in little league where everyone is given a prize for participating, then the system as is is fair. You know what the game is and what the odds are. If you choose to still play, that's it. There are many games with much more frequent winners where max's are capped. Since MUSL doesnt have monopoly on gambling, no one should think it's unfair.

I love this comment. A blessed and warm hearted winner indeed.

Craziness...what are the odds of it reaching 1 billion by Saturday, I wonder.

True to that, hope they manage to buy all tickets, and scan them. Must be a hell of a job to do this work this week..

It'll get to a billion by Saturday judging by the huge line at my small town store.    People are buying $20, 50, $100 worth of tickets.  This is crazy.  Everybody is talking about Powerball!

I 1000% agree with you on that. i want to see one winner just to make people mad. i spend my $2 to be the jackpot winner all other prizes are just nice to have but i go in either with the hope of millions of dollars or crap out.

Haha, there won't be much to spread around.  This time there will likely be 75-100 5+0 winners I'd say.

The lotter websites is back.

Did you know Lotterypost websites crash last night for at least 30 minutes or more.

Good luck everyone.

Virgin post for me on this site.  Been coming here over the years just for updated lottery news and read some of the comments.  Figured might as well post from time to time.

I'll be picking up my tickets before the drawing.

My family from Anniston.  They all car pooling to exit 5 early Saturday.

Alabama going to get a lottery real soon.  They losing too much money not having one.

Can i ask someone this question? What time of day is the best time to buy a ticket or tickets when the jackpot is huge like this? Morning , Lunch time , etc...? Or buy them in advance like a day before the drawing?

I agree 100%.  It used to irritate me when they capped the poweball back in the day.  If there are multiple winners of the jackpot, so be it, but don't do anything artificial to spread the money around.

At 1:38 PM local time. The problem is no one knows what time zone will win.

I don't know what is the best time but making sure you have them in advance is a good idea.  Twice when I waited until the last minute I went into my favorite retailer to get my ticket and the terminal system was down.  Once it came back fairly quickly and once I found out it was all the lottery terminals in the state.  Luckily I live near other jurisdictions and was able to go to the next state over and get my ticket just before the cut off.

Here's a thought.  If for some reason nobody wins Saturday's drawing, could next Wednesday's jackpot top a billion dollars ???

in 2012 for the largest at the time mega million jackpot there was 132 5+0. and 29 from California. so good chance of that being very true

Yes, I am seeing the same thing.  Alot of people buying tickets, even today a couple of days before the drawing.  Also everyone talking about it.  Every convenient store I go to (I make a couple of stops at them for work) everyone is talking about it. 

And did anyone see how many 2nd prize winners there were last night? *** 14 *** and 1 bonus 2nd prize winner.  So 14 people hit for 1 mil and 1 for 2 mil, which I think they should pay the multipler like MM does.  How much you think THOSE people are gonna play to try to win MORE? Or will they be happy with what they won?  I think they ALL will be buying LOTS of additional tickets. 

13-33-35-48-67 + 26
12-19-23-62-67 + 04
25-38-49-55-67 + 21
13-19-24-45-56 + 01
10-16-27-28-32 + 07
27-44-50-54-60 + 04
09-10-11-25-54 + 14
08-23-31-36-62 + 23
02-38-39-41-48 + 25
05-06-33-45-69 + 15
10-21-43-48-50 + 15
02-39-43-44-66 + 14
15-19-26-52-68 + 24
15-16-23-47-58 + 09
13-34-42-58-65 + 05
10-44-50-63-65 + 19
05-31-33-38-51 + 15
12-14-23-45-60 + 06
27-36-44-62-69 + 26
13-18-45-50-68 + 26
07-09-20-45-50 + 22
05-10-27-35-50 + 10
05-10-31-63-67 + 15
04-07-15-37-41 + 16
40-53-65-66-68 + 05
17-19-24-51-54 + 12
04-15-32-43-67 + 09
15-20-41-56-65 + 06
08-09-15-44-69 + 04
12-31-53-55-58 + 23
03-07-33-50-69 + 23
05-07-13-58-61 + 10
31-34-54-58-69 + 21
15-19-47-63-66 + 04
05-25-56-67-69 + 10
02-03-07-08-26 + 19
22-25-30-42-52 + 08
11-40-41-43-46 + 17
03-22-27-29-61 + 15
25-41-44-61-65 + 22
17-21-29-40-59 + 16
01-46-47-51-52 + 05
02-41-57-64-65 + 21
34-41-45-63-67 + 12
32-35-43-50-56 + 05
16-22-25-33-62 + 05
01-04-46-50-64 + 11
01-28-30-35-53 + 01
03-32-46-65-67 + 25
38-43-49-53-61 + 18

I think so too !

Every loser they buy is a definite write off, not just a maybe on a possible future win.

Thrifty,

Are you buying all those lines ?

There were a bunch of 2nd place winners last draw. I would be shocked if no one wins it this week with all the tickets being sold...

I heard on NPR that they pushed the jackpot up to $700mil. $300 away from a billion. I'll be able to get my tickets in SC.

I said I didn't think this would make a billion dollars.  Getting ready to eat my words.  At $700,000,000 and two and a half more days to go, it just might make it.

Welcome to LP!

Barry Sanders approves of this messege

Barry Sanders? What does football have to do with the $700 mil Powerball jackpot?

I think by Friday morning it will be 800,000,000. Friday night 850,000,000. Sat morning we'll see 900,000,000. And PB wants so bad for it to hit 1 billion that we will see it happen. 

I think it will be 1 Billion dollars come Sat night and we will have 6 winners of the Grand prize and 25 winners of the 2nd prize...

Powerball changed the Matrix recently so it could get to a Billion dollars...

No lines in Boise at 1:30 today.  I went to a vending machine at Rite Aid first, then a likker store.  Walked by a Stinker and only 1 car there so probably no lines there either.

Yes, if this prize was divided up into 1 million per person, first, it couldn't be a random draw.  It would have to be a raffle or something.  Second, no way on earth would it be worth even half this amount.  It probably would still be around 50 mil.  People don't put down lots of money in order to win a million bucks anymore.

should be a most curious weekend

best of luck to all

please let it hit in VA

I splurged and spent $500 on PB tickets this morning!  It's the most I've ever spent on lottery tickets.  At 10 am there were 7 people in line to buy tickets.  I thought I was the only smart one.  Don't wait until the last minute when the terminals will be overloaded and shut down. 

I've also made a list of friends who will be part of a Trust if one of my tickets win the big jackpot.

Cha-ching!   

You should vote on the rules by not buying any tickets when the jackpot is more than $500 million.

Did you have a strategy other than a bunch of quick picks?

How long is the press conference when you win the powerball and how be for I receive my money?

its best to look at previous drawings and determine from there, like i know that 3 consecutives are possible and shouldn't be ruled out, having patterns like 14 24 34 or 1 low number and 4 high, numbers, powerball is anyones guess

I don't think i can ever justify spending $500 on just a single draw alone, I would expect that money to last for a year of draws.

I am thinking about getting an extra ticket for this .........

I hope you wheeled these with a strategy??    I'm not opposed to playing big wheels  with a strategy but playing $500 of quick picks is probably not the way to go.

Hope it works out for you. Presumably, you bought 250 tickets without Powerplay. With the jackpot odds being 1 in ~292 million, your combined odds of winning is still a far out 1 in ~1.17 million. Even hitting 2nd place, which pays $1 million (except California) with 250 tickets is 1 in 46,752. More realistic, but still a huge long-shot. Good luck!

Personally, I bought two tickets with Powerplay, since hitting 2nd place is 25 times more likely than 1st. That extra $1 million will come in handy to cover the taxes on the base $1 million prize. On the other hand, if I'd skipped buying Powerplay, I could have bought a 3rd ticket. So it's a gamble, but figure I'd go with the odds, while hoping for the big one, knowing it's far more likely to hit a lower tier prize, which is doubled or more with Powerplay.

Rock on!  I admit to fantasing more about how I could have fun at the press conference than the actual dinero. Lol!!!

Most were quick picks.  Some were specific numbers above 31.  I don't play birthday numbers.

Not all states require a press conference.  Idaho doesn't.  I believe Illinois encourages their winners to do one, but you can get out of it if you really want to.

"In Illinois, big jackpot winners are compelled to make themselves public to prove the lottery is paying out its prizes — something that wasn't done decades ago when such games of chance were scams, Illinois Lottery Superintendent Michael Jones said. Though the lottery could insist winners do a news conference, Jones said officials offer some wiggle room to those who want privacy.

"We will work with whoever the prize-winner is," he said. "But we would publicize as much as we can about the winner as is needed," and "ultimately an enterprising reporter can find out who that person is."

It takes MUSL time to gather up all the proceeds from each state, so from what I've heard, it can take 2 weeks or so to get your money.

30+ days.  They do a background check on you to see if you have any back taxes due, missed child support payments, unpaid driving tickets, etc....if so, they deduct that from your winnings before you get your money.

Gotcha. 

Just want to point something out to you though- you could have wheeled all 26 power balls 9 times for $500 guaranteeing that you would at least hit $36.  :)

Read my signature!

What other 'strategy' could she possibly need?

Analyzing past draw results, looking for trends, patterns, or at least organizing selected numbers i.e. Wheeling.  Not everyone is a fan of wheeling though.

Three way split..

Pinko.

That a long time to wait, when you have a clean record

Thank you NBC news for just reporting the Powerball jackpot sans negative aspects i.e. greater chance of getting hit by lightning, etc.  Just once I wish they would report say on the amount of millionaires it has created over the past five years.  No, that would be a feel good story that wouldn't sell too well.

Oh that is a pet peeve of mine too!  Also some people have won multiple times.  Lol. Just sayin'. :-). How about a little positivity?  As our lottery slogan here in ga says "Today could be the day!"  :-)

They might as well jack it up to 1 billy and get it over it. I'm sure some people will sell their first born, figuratively speaking, just to get in the $1B game.

I think it will happen.