Wow. This is it. A huge record jackpot that honestly feels like it came out of no-where. 

It's already at 675MM and we still have 3 days to saturday. 

Anyone want to venture a guess on saturday's jackpot? 

Do we think 800-900MM range?  Or even....the insane billion dollar mark?

So basically $800 million plus, Jesus Christ. 

This one will hit the $$Billion Dollar mark for sure.

I love it......I absolutely love it!!!

Wow...New record now huh... this will be fun ;)

Seriously. 

In fact I feel it has a real chance to really go north of 900MM...think about it. This is now THE largest advertised jackpot in US (world) history. It's ALREADY at 675MM and we're only just starting thursday. 

This will be ALL OVER the news 24/7 and will be on radio, TV, newspaper, online, everywhere. 

The media and word of mouth will drive up hype and will get lot of people who don't regularly play lottery come out to get few tickets. 

So with essentially 3 full days of ticket sales....we may very well be seeing a very real possibility at a 950+MM jackpot come saturday....or even....possibly cross the 1 billion mark!

Have mercy! I'll take a slice of that! I dont even need all of it! I will gladly share!

I do really like to see over a dozen tickets win something awesome! What a way to start the year!

whats the chance it will roll over on saturday? does anyone know?

That's it!  I've caved.  Never cared much for housework but I'll just have to go lift up those sofa cushions and see if there's enough coin for the purchase of a PowerBillionaire ticket.  Rubber gloves, here we go.  Wish me luck.

If no one wins Saturday's jackpot there will be massive heart attacks across the country!  Hospitals will be swamped....ha.

Wow! !!! what a jackpot 

Virtually 0% this will rollover again on saturday. 

Essentially with the amount of ticket sales you can mathematically calculate how many possible combinations have been sold. With a 1 in 292million chance...I'm guessing that if you sell roughly 300million tickets...which is VERY possible....that you essentially will have 8-9/10 combinations bought and there will likely be MULTIPLE winners on saturday. 

So basically there is no chance it will rollover again on saturday.....but if it does.....well......it's gonna be a brave new world then....

Surprise California or New York did not win. I think $968mil on Saturday. Spent $20 and won $12 when I multiplied with 17 ball number.  Much success to all

I am guessing about 220-250 million tickets will be sold through saturday so there's a chance it will rollover, maybe a small chance but not highly unlikely

I'd imagine there would be ticket buyers from outside the US getting in on the action.

I need to get me some tickets and beat the rush.

A year ago I would have agreed with that statement, but with the combination of PB having a lower handle then MM cause of $2 bet and the now higher odds, I'd say there's a better chance for it rolling on then hitting the billion dollar mark on Sat.

I'm buying mine Thursday morning to avoid the lines.  It took me about 40 minutes to get Wednesday's tickets, there were so many people in line buying.

Interesting that the jackpot is the highest ever at $675 million. $19 million more than the 2nd highest jackpot ever, $656 million in March 2012. 

But the cash value, at $413 million is not the highest ever, it is in the #2 position. 

The highest cash value was in March 2012 at $471 million, a $58 million difference.

The largest cash value from the $656 million jackpot in March 2012 was for a 25 year annuity. The current $675 million jackpot with a cash value of $413 million is for a 30 year annuity. The extra 5 years gives the cash value more time to grow with compound interest.

Really enjoying this.  Feel for those border states like Primm, CA where the folks from Las Vegas come to play.  They'll have that Lotto store on the news again i'm sure with those long lines.  Too bad the casinos have such a stranglehold on Nevada residents by preventing a lottery there.  Like I said before,  you can buy lottery tickets in casinos in NJ, RI, the one in MA as well as CT.  I know I've played lottery in all of them.  Good luck to everyone!  Now onto the Powerball website.

Forgot one state for casino lottery machines/agents:  OH has one that I know of.

I wonder if we'll see 800 by Saturday?

It will definitely be at least $800M by Saturday. My guess is $850-$900M. It will definitely have Mega Millions record cash value beat.

"Dreams do come true" 

I wonder how LP Members did?  I  have heard about some like MikeinTexas and weshar75 winning a bit. Who else has won a little bit?

DANG!!! $675 MIL!!! This is what lotto wet dreams are made of!!!! And to think the jackpot coiuld be well over $800 mill by Saturday!!!! I can't even wrap my mind around if the jackpot isn't won Saturday!!!

...and you're lucky your state allows for anonymous winners.

Just bought mine, even used my OttoLball to pick one set of numbers.

I agree, it will jump up again and again, loving it.

This certainly is A astronomically large jackpot. I think it will roll at least another five times before someone hits it. I think this jackpot will easily go over a billion dollars.

That is very true, Every crazy, scam artist, criminal would have a big ol bulls eye on me and even my family  if they knew I won the  biggest jackpot in history. It would be hard to enjoy my money in peace, when I have to constantly look over my shoulder.

 Please consider purchasing Umbrella Insurance also called Excess liability insurance. Do not forget about some kidnap and ransom insurance. Personal security could be needed.

 All these things and more that we do not think about now. Your life will change. Count on it.

 America is a litigious society. Nuisance lawsuits may become common in your new life.

 This is one of the reasons that the rich tend to live in gated communities and play at the same events. Plus they belong to country clubs so that they will rub shoulders with people like them.

 Congratulations future lottery winner!  Your name and other details will be spoken of in the future when the jackpots get close to another record amount.

 God blessed America.

The lottery knows folks get paid on Fridays lol let it roll over bigger profit

I can't even imagine what will happen if:

1. no one hit the jackpot comes Saturday the likelihood that it will reach $1.x billion
2. or a single hit this next draw, that one person or group of people hit the close to $1 billion
3. 2016 is already a great year!!!
4. retailers with lottery likely hit lots more businesses
5. We all know the odds of hitting the jackpot, so the "winner(s)" will be the most famous person(s) of the year!
6. The other games may not be played as much for the upcoming days.

all I have to say for this!

Well everything is about to get crazy! Good luck to anyone playing.

A lot of people won a million+. Surprised it rolled. Big bullet dodged.

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

In previous, related threads, I've harped about MUSL estimates sometimes falling short; not honoring the advertised jackpot amount.

However, in this instance, it's near certain all MUSL estimates will be lower than actual. As others have already said, $800 million annuity is looking realistic.

Not sure about $1 billion though. Could happen, but likely the jackpot is going to fall a bit short unless many casual players wager far heavier than they have in past "record" PB runs. Ie. instead of buying one or two tickets, buying 5-10 tickets. At $20 average wager per player, $1 billion annuity is very possible.

And while highly unlikely, there's a slim chance of the jackpot rolling again. If that happens, the sky is the limit. It will be pure pandemonium. May be worthwhile to play ahead a couple of drawings just in case.

I'm with Ron.  I think the JP will be hit this go-around.  That billion dollar jackpot will probably remain very elusive. G5

Anyone else want a single winner because i definitely want to see one. That is if its not my single ticket someone else's ticket. i want another gloria type winner. Dont need split or caps or any other b.s the whinners cry about. Dont like it dont play it. Thats what second place is for have that million.

Is there such a thing as a jackpot cap???

I could see this rolling to 4,5,6 billion who knows, even more.  As I've said before it will NOT be won until EVERY possible number combo is purchased.

Oh let's hope high numbers are drawn.  If birthday numbers come up, the jackpot will be split about 500 ways LOL.

And, Here, We, GO!

Does anyone know what percentage of combinations were covered in last night's PB drawing?

You are so right. Last week I was reading a news piece about what to do and not do if you win. You know, the same pieces that are run every time the JP gets high.

Anyway, in the comments section was someone posing as Marie Holmes. They were doing it via a fake facebook profile using a photo of Marie with the jumbo check and telling people she won because of her spiritual guide and if they wanted to win this jackpot, to contact that guide for a reading.

You better believe that the conmen will be coming hard and fast on whoever wins this. It's one thing for them to try and scam jackpot winners, but using someone's identity to scam others...? Way worse in my opinion.

Canada and also i want to say a couple other countries also have lottery caps and the money rolls over to next jackpot.

And if they start above 31 then good chance it will roll.

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!! 

Powerball jackpots have been hit with only 5% of combinations covered.

Won 4 bucks on a PB match again, so I will be in on this one for saturday draw maybe 4 bucks or maybe more.  Only thing that bugs me is that the media feeding frenzy will be paying attention more closely to who wins.

I think about 45%

it'll be worth more in a matter of days and the value of the united states dollar continue to rise so ITS WORTH A LOT

I'm gonna be honest here, I'm thisclose to e-mail one of these "spelltemple" kind of people that comment on every lottery article.

If you assume that roughly the same amount of people will wager the same amount they did when shooting for Wednesday night's jackpot then the jackpot for Saturday will be easily $700M. 

Now we all know that MORE people will wager either the same amount or a bit more if not a lot more. So that says that the jackpot for Saturday will be even larger than $700M but just how much larger is yet to be seen.  I'll go conservative and say it climbs to at least $725M.  Many are saying or hoping it gets to $800M but that would involve quite a bit more people out there buying tickets expecting the jackpot to hit. The reality is that the higher the jackpot goes it's because they've sold more tickets so the higher the chances of it being hit.

Getting to a Billion I think would involve at least one more rollover and just for the hell of it I'd love to see that kind of a jackpot.

I couldn't help but notice somebody saying that it could go to 4,5,6 billion....yeah that is soooo nearly impossible.

Another comment I saw that totally makes sense is that other people in other countries must be calling their friends in the USA and asking them to buy tickets on their behalf.  Heck I would bet people in states that don't have the lottery probably are doing the same thing.  Lastly, I think the whole world will be watching this potentially historic lottery drawing and surely will make the news all around the world when someone hits it.

Anybody know the record number of winners with 5 numbers and no powerball?

Haven't a clue.......

"Buy Me A Boat"

$675 Million Woo Hoo 

https://www.lotterypost.com/news/112702

Fortune cookie bet made Powerball lottery players rich

Won nothing on the 9 tickets I did buy. Someone in CA did win the second prize which was around 1,400 bucks. Amazingly, I believe it had been around $400k before last night and usually goes up about 200k a draw. So, they must have sold a heck of a lot of tickets. 

I admit I have pooh-poohed! -- yes, pooh-poohed!, the ones claiming it could hit a billion.  In 4 days it went up from 400 mil to 675 mil. But, there were 4 days of ticket sales. Can they match it in 3 days which would be at least 950 mil or more?????

With the media frenzy that's ensuing and people doing weekend shopping runs I could see it.

The author really needs to check the facts. $675 million is nowhere near being a 'world record'.  Spain's El Gordo lottery regularly has jackpots that are in the billions.  In 2012 there was a $3.3 billion dollar jackpot.

El Gordo is not a lottery, it is a raffle, and it does NOT have a jackpot.  It has a big prize pool, but NOT a jackpot.  The top prize that anyone can win is a few million Euro.

Any writer who claims that El Gordo has the world's biggest lottery jackpot is wrong. It is common for reporters in the mainstream news media to be ignorant about lotteries, and throw around terms like "jackpot" interchangeably.

To be clear: a jackpot is an ever-increasing prize pool (until it is won) that can be won by one person, or split by a couple or few people.

You can think of El Gordo as an expensive scratch-off game.  An expensive scratch-off game can award hundreds of millions of dollars, but never to one person. The "hundreds of millions of dollars" is just the total prize pool in the game, not a jackpot.  Just like El Gordo.

I hope this helps.

It's said that a lot of people always play 1  2  3  4  5.......... make 6 the Powerball and this would be quite an interesting hit if it comes in.

I erred when I said the second prize in Calif was 1400 bucks. It was over $1,400,000.

@Todd

Almost correct, some lotteries like Euromillions or Eurojackpot do have capped jackpots so they are not ever increasing variants of Lotteries.

Forgot to quote...

I wasn't trying to write a legal definition that covers every possible variation.  I think the point is clear.

Lol! Hope you win something so you can buy your own boat and truck. Good luck Golfer1960!

Thanks Todd! i'm just jealous of americans that can win non capped jackpots (on the other hand european jackpots, in most cases, are tax free...)

Interestingly, the was a period of several years in which Powerball had a semi-capped jackpot that would only allow an increase of $25 million for each roll that set a new record.  I think the lotteries were worried about reaching the $1 billion mark, and then having nowhere else to go.

Judging from the crazy ticket sales, they were smart to get rid of the cap.

Personally, I think lotteries should offer both capped and non-capped games within each lottery jurisdiction, so that players have the opportunity to play both types.

It will be interesting to see how high the jackpot will be on Saturday. My guess is $850+ million with a cash value of $500+ million. Hoping one of us here at LP finally gets lucky.

If that happened the people that want the jackpot split among hundreds of winners would be happy.

Unfortunately, each share wouldn't be very much.

Somebody analysed the 123456 combo in our 6/49 version and came to the conclusion that every given time around 6000 people play it. 

Generel question, the 675M$ is an estimate for Saturday and not what is definitely the current final of sales, right?

Still can't see it not go up 100M$ or more until Saturday.

Off the subject, Todd, but did you see someone won $3 million on a penny machine @ Trump Taj Mahal?

Good luck Todd on Powerball and Mega Millions nothing to sneeze @ either!!

My guess is that they will raise the jackpot sometime early Friday afternoon, and sometime again early Saturday afternoon. This will be to try an get people to maximize the purchase of additional tickets. The publicity machine will be in full swing. 

By what amount the jackpot will be raised in anybody's guess at this point.

According to the Texas Lottery website, the lottery is basing it's projected jackpot on an estimate of 357,249,000 in sales, with the number of tickets being half that.

The Poisson distribution for number of winners for randomized tickets at this level is as follows:

The pretax expectation value is 0.78.

These values are likely to change we approach the draw.

Can you imagine if we had 15 winners Last night? 

Right.  I saw the final amount last night was $524.1 million though the advertised amount was $500 million. 

Wouldn't be surprised if it starts going up even today, particularly in the afternoon when folks get off work, etc.  It will most definitely increase substantially come Saturday, just wait and see.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Wait, see and win!

Viel Glück!

Vielen Danke!

Going to have to send a ticket to Deutschland if no one wins Saturday.  Look for a message from me Sonntag!

Tschuss (spelling)

I convinced my wife to do a co worker pool,  we should have 25 tickets going in.

color me freaked out ........ but I put in my $4

time 4 a trip around the world

You get a pass on the spelling because of the umlaut. ;)

Haha...Trax, I love the cowboy outfit. How does your cat let you dress him like that?

Hi D! Good luck to you too. I know you have an appetite for cars. Are you shopping?

Told you, just jumped to $700 million.  Someone posted on Facebook how to get umlaut and other accent marks on the computer, but don't remember it.

Just went up to 700 million 5 minutes ago. I predict that it will be at least 800 million before Saturday night but may even go higher if the tickets sell as they expect it to

I'm betting, pardon the pun, that it will easily pass the $900 million mark, we've got plenty of time to draw time.  Sure feel for those border state employees that ring up many, many tickets to non lottery state residents.  That's OK, it sweetens the pot that much quicker.

They keep having to update it, nice! Now I believe it'll be 850 on Saturday.

You can just use ue for ü, ae for ä, oe for ö. ;)

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

You both are near correct.

Some internal guesswork figures are putting it around this much:

531,900,000 cash

869,100,000 Annuity.

The math is based off the MM record jackpot. That also was a 3-day selling jackpot      - "The largest jackpot ever" as reported by the media back then.

That's how strong sales pushed it then.

That's how high this jackpot can go with what they know from the past sells.  It could go even higher as you both point out.

Hubba Bubba! Ticket sales were more then twice what i thought. I also expected more second place winners considering the 656 MM had 161.

I heard that Germany got rid of what we call the S-set...that funny looking 'B' symbol that symbolizes double S's.  I can remember seeing a street sign when I first arrived and I thought it was strange saying what I thought was StraBe when in fact it is Strasse.  Is this true?

It is a virtual certainty that a winner (or multiple winners) will come out of this next drawing.  It has now been bumped up to $700 million with nearly 3 full days remaining to add to the pot. 1 in 292 million odds....someone has got to win it.

Pretty sure people will find an extra $20 for tickets !!!  Here's to hoping it hits the $1 Billion mark !!!  Good Luck Folks !!!

ß is a sharp s-sound. They have changed the grammar around it some 20 years ago to make it all more straightforward as in spanish for example, where if you hear an f-sound it is always an f and not a ph. So in German it used to be "Delphin" for dolphin but is now "Delfin". The rules around the ß-ss are a little more complicated and it depends on then "length" of the vowel sound. So in "Straße" the "a" is too long for "Strasse".

Often times its guesswork and you decide on what sounds right and what sounds wrong. 

http://german.about.com/od/writinggerman/a/When-To-Use-S-Ss-Or-Ss.htm

http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa092898.htm

It depends on how many tickets are sold, and on what numbers are drawn. It becomes less of a factor as sales increase and a higher percentage of sales are QP, but birthday numbers increase the chance of a winner compared to random probability.

Based on random probability there's at least a 20% chance we'll see a jackpot of a billion or more. That's based on a requirement to sell about 425 million tickets to reach a billion on this roll. Either that happens and we see a billion this time around, or there's a 23% chance of a roll. Those numbers have a bit of wiggle room, based on how much is diverted to the reserve fund.

The last drawing topped out right around $525 million, and had sales of just over 175 million tickets, which was a bit more than 3 times as much as the previous drawing. It's an extremely safe bet that sales for this drawing will be at least a bit higher, but there's no way of knowing how much bigger other than watching actual sales. I'll take a fairly wild guess that 1.5 times as many is realistic, and possibly conservative. That would be about 264 million tickets, which would mean an advertised jackpot on the close order of $820 million, and a 40% chance of rolling again.

It will takes sales of 225 million tickets to reach a legitimate record by surpassing the $474 million cash value of the current record.

Here are the probabilities that it will roll, for other numbers of tickets sold:
300  36%
350  30%
400  25%
500  18%

That last means that even if it goes a bit past a billion this time around there's still nearly a 1 in 5 chance of rolling again.

I was doing OK with my second Deutsch class through Univ of MD until we got to dativ (?) where the article would change let's say from der to die for no reason to me.  Confusing, something easier to learn when you are much younger I suppose.

The reason is dependent on gender and count/amount and sometimes random stuff. there's a lot of infighting with der/das Ketchup, die/das Nutella and so on. Don't worry, article mistakes are really common and usually people just skip over it. Kinda endearing when people fudge it. 

Since when did birthday numbers have a higher probability of winning than QPs?

Can't do the stacked double B on my 'puter but I remember wondering why everyone was calling 'Giebben' (road signs) Giessen.

(What a story Giessen is)

As for the jackpot, wonder if people will freak if it gets within a few million of $1B, someone wins it, and it's a long time since we see another that big.

That made me laugh!  Mad Ludwig invented Deutsch?  If so, he was mad alright.

Was tired when I called my Brother wishing him Happy Birthday and said the jackpot was $725 million and didn't realize my error.  I think it'll blow far past the 700's shortly...

Jeffrey

Was Mad Ludwig the one who fell for those american boytoys? 

I'm guessing it'll blow past 725M$ easy.

Don't know about that one, just a vague memory from Neuschwanstein about some cat named Ludwig.

Loving it.

Yeah.....

If I tried that on my cat she would claw me to ribbons, with a couple bites thrown in.