Powerball numbers for $1.9 billion jackpot drawing? No drawing due to technical difficulties
MIAMI - How about waking up a billionaire? The Powerball lottery is up to 1.9 billion, that's the highest jackpot in its history.
At 11 p.m. Monday night, a Powerball official said they were having technical difficulties with the drawing and that you should check out their website for updates.
"Because of a technical problem tonight, we are unable to bring you the Powerball drawing at this time. As soon as we are unable to resolve the issue and conduct the drawing, it will be available on Powerball.com," lottery host Laura Johnson said. "Our rules require that the drawing be delayed until we can ensure that all game procedures have been successfully completed."
CBS4 wanted to find out more about why the zeros keep on coming so we spoke with the Florida Lottery. To put into perspective how the jackpot keeps growing, the organization took a snapshot.
From 11 a.m. to 11:59 a.m. Monday, 17,000 tickets were sold a minute in the state, and they estimated, $583 were being generated through the lottery a second. As excitement keeps building so do the numbers of tickets sold, but part of the reason is, there hasn't been a winner since August.
And if 1.9 billion isn't good enough for you, that jackpot could climb as lottery players continue to buy more tickets up until the 10 p.m. cutoff.
"There are various factors that go into whether or not the numbers will exceed 2 billion," John Davis, Florida Lottery Secretary said.
He hopes the state will see its 17th Powerball jackpot winner. According to Powerball, and going back to 2003, Pennsylvania has sold the most jackpot-winning tickets, but right behind it is Florida, with 16 winners.
The odds despite the huge jackpot don't change, it's 1 in 292,201,338 to hit all 5 numbers the Powerball, and that's enough for some to dream.
"I'm a veterinarian so I'd probably like to help the animals," Aurelio Roa told CBS4.
Others would rather skip it. "I don't need it, I have money from God," Jenina Matos said.