theLotter has reported a ‘large increase’ in traffic to its website this week after the Powerball jackpot hit its second-highest ever total on Wednesday.
The latest drawing came and went without a player matching all six numbers, ensuring Saturday’s jackpot stands at $800m – only once has the Powerball jackpot exceeded this figure, when players from California, Florida and Tennessee shared the $1.6bn jackpot in January 2016.
The California Lottery recently revealed that it had sold more than 55.4 million tickets since this jackpot run began in early August, with nearly $15.2m in prizes produced for 2.1 million tickets in the state.
Now, theLotter – an online lottery ticket purchasing service – has noted an uptick in the orders of tickets from players in Oregon, Minnesota, Colorado and Texas.
“Together with the Mega Millions, Powerball is of course well-known to produce very large jackpots,” said Peggy Daniel, theLotter’s US Managing Director.
“Three ticket holders shared Powerball’s 2016 jackpot of $1.58bn, then Mega Millions set a record in October 2018 when a single player in South Carolina won the entire $1.53bn jackpot. And only three months ago, on July 29, Mega Millions made it all the way up to the $1.33bn mark again.
“Powerball has good cards to surpass that number soon and, if the $800m Powerball jackpot isn’t won, the top prize could easily fly past the $1bn mark again.”