Powerball drawing for $750 million begins Saturday night, could you be the next winner?
LOS ANGELES - The estimated jackpot for the Saturday, Sept. 23 drawing of the Powerball lottery is $750 million, the seventh largest prize in the game's history and the 12th largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history.
So far, no tickets have been sold with all six numbers since July 19 of this year, when a ticket worth $1.08 billion was sold at a downtown Los Angeles mini-market.
But according to USC math professor Ken Alexander, buying a ticket at a store where tickets with large jackpots have been sold in the past does not necessarily increase a purchaser's chance of winning a jackpot.
"The chance that a given place will sell a winning lottery ticket is just related to how many tickets they sell," said Alexander.
However, players looking to avoid sharing the jackpot should choose numbers that aren't selected as often, according to Alexander.
He said that lottery players frequently choose the date of their birthdays as one of the numbers, so numbers higher than 31 would be played less.
RELATED COVERAGE: Winner not yet ID'ed in $1 billion Powerball jackpot
The identity of the $1 billion Powerball jackpot remains a mystery. However, what we do know is that the winning ticket was sold in a downtown Los Angeles minimart and the business owner will be awarded money for selling the winning ticket.
The odds of matching all five numbers with the Powerball number is 1 in 292.2 million, according to the Mult-State Lottery Association, the organization that conducts the game.
But the overall chance of winning any prize is 1 in 24.9.
If you're looking to grab a ticket in time, sales end at 7 p.m. Saturday evening. The drawing will be held at 7:59 p.m.
The Powerball game is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands.
City News Service contributed to this report.