The ninth-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history - - $1.09 billion -- will be at stake in Wednesday evening's multi-state Powerball drawing.
There have been 39 drawings since Jan. 1, the last time a ticket with all six numbers was sold, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game.
Wednesday's drawing will take place at 7:59 p.m. Tickets sold after 7:05 p.m. are ineligible for that night's draw, but are eligible for the following drawing.
Buying tickets at a store where tickets with large jackpots have been sold in the past will not increase a purchaser's chance of winning a jackpot, according to USC mathematics professor Ken Alexander.
"The chance that a given place will sell a winning lottery ticket is just related to how many tickets they sell," Alexander told City News Service.
However, players wanting a better chance of avoiding sharing the jackpot should choose numbers that aren't selected as often, Alexander said. Lottery players frequently choose the date of their birthdays as one of their numbers, so numbers higher than 31 would be played less, Alexander said.
The odds of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number are 1 in 292.2 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. The overall chance of winning a prize is 1 in 24.9.
The jackpot for Wednesday's drawing is the fourth-largest in the history of the Powerball game which began in 1992. There have been five larger jackpots for the Mega Millions game, which began in 1996 as The Big Game and was given the new name Mega Millions in 2002.
The Powerball game is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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