Richmond, Va. (NewsradioWRVA.com) - At times today, Virginia Lottery officials say that they will be selling 6300 Powerball tickets per minute in Virginia for tonight's drawing. The jackpot of $1.2 billion is not quite a record, but it is a huge jackpot up for grabs during tonight's 11 p.m. drawing.
Virginia Lottery spokesman John Hagerty says that if there is no winner tonight, the jackpot could initially be $1.5 billion for Saturday night's drawing, which would be a little short of a record jackpot. That was set by Powerball in 2016 with a $1.58 billion jackpot. He says that jackpot could rise before Saturday night's drawing to eclipse that record.
With a big jackpot like this, Hagerty says a lot of first-time players buy tickets and a lot of office pools are formed to buy tickets. Hagerty says it's important if you're forming these pools to make sure you know how many people are in the pool before the ticket or tickets are bought.
As always, the Virginia Lottery says you should have fun but play responsibly.
