CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It was a winning week for the West Virginia Lottery, as the recording-breaking Powerball jackpot that reached $590.5 million on Saturday also fueled record sales in the state.
“For West Virginia, we actually had a record week of sales for the Powerball game at about $4.6 million dollars,” said, Nikki Orcutt, the West Virginia Lottery marketing director.
For Saturday’s drawing alone, 1.5 million Powerball tickets were sold in West Virginia, adding up to $3.3 million in sales.
The lone winning ticket was purchased in Florida, and there were no $1 million prize winners from West Virginia either. But Orcutt said that doesn’t mean West Virginians lost out.
“We did have some higher-tier prize winners,” Orcutt said. “We paid out almost two million dollars in prizes.”
The Powerball jackpots have been going up, up and up since last year’s change raises the ticket price from $1 to $2. It’s created much larger jackpots, and Orcutt projected those big paydays will just keep coming.
“We definitely anticipate within the next six months that we could possibly have another half-billion dollar jackpot.”
In fact, Orcutt said she wouldn’t be surprised to see a jackpot reach the billion-dollar mark in the near future.