CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State Lottery Director John Myers says it’s uncommon to see both the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots near record levels.
“It’s a rare occurrence to see both of them go up at this rate at the same time. It’s kind of fun to watch, but also someone is going to win a lot of money if they get it,” Myers told MetroNews Wednesday morning.
Myers said he hopes someone from West Virginia will win big during Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing or Friday night’s Mega Millions drawing.
The Powerball jackpot is a whopping $1 billion with a $516.8 million cash value. It’s the third-largest jackpot in Powerball history and the seventh-largest U.S. lottery jackpot.
Mega Millions could reach the $1 billion mark as well. Friday’s jackpot currently sat at $720 million on Wednesday with a cash payout of $369.6 million.
Myers said more people play the lottery when the jackpots are higher.
“That’s really what drives the sales of the game is the jackpot,” he said. “When the jackpot approaches $400 million, you start to see an increase in our sales.”
Powerball’s biggest jackpot so far was $2.04 billion, hit in Nov. 2022 with the winning ticket sold in California. A $1.5 billion Powerball ticket was sold in 2016, but that prize was split among three winners in California, Florida and Tennessee.
Myers said a lot of times friends, family and coworkers go in on the same ticket purchase and then split the earnings.
“Various groups have an office pool and then somebody will take the money and then go buy tickets and they split that money between the players in that office,” he said.
Lottery players can also win big even if they don’t hit either jackpot, Myers said. There have already been winners in West Virginia this month.
“We had one $50,000 winners back on July 10 and then on Monday we actually had two $50,000 winners,” Myers said.
While many people play Mega Millions, Myers said West Virginia is a primarily a Powerball state.
“A lot of our players have been loyal to that game and even sometimes you’ll see when the Mega Millions jackpot is higher, we’ll still have more Powerball sales because of the familiarity of the game to the people of West Virginia,” he said.
The last time someone won the Powerball jackpot was April 19 for a top prize of nearly $253 million. Since then, no one has won the grand prize in the past 38 drawings.
The odds of winning Wednesday’s $1 billion Powerball jackpot are about 1 in 300 million.