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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The estimated jackpot for Saturday evening's drawing of the multi-state Powerball lottery is $750 million, the seventh largest prize in the game's history and 12th largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history.
There have been no tickets sold with all six numbers since July 19 when a ticket with all six numbers worth $1.08 billion was sold at a downtown Los Angeles mini-market.
Saturday's drawing will be the 28th since the last time a ticket with all six number has been sold.
The odds of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number is 1 in 292.2 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game. The overall chance of winning a prize is 1 in 24.9.
Ticket sales end at 7 p.m. 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.
Buying tickets at a store where tickets with large jackpots have been sold in the past will not increase a purchaser's chance of winning a jackpot, according to USC mathematics professor Ken Alexander.
"The chance that a given place will sell a winning lottery ticket is just related to how many tickets they sell," Alexander told City News Service.
However, players wanting a better chance of avoiding sharing the jackpot should choose numbers that aren't selected as often, Alexander said. Lottery players frequently choose the date of their birthdays as one of their numbers, so numbers higher than 31 would be played less, Alexander said.