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Powerball Jackpot up to $535 million Ahead of Saturday’s Drawing

What would you do with half a billion dollars? The Powerball jackpot is up to $535 million. The grand prize could rank as the 8th richest U.S. lottery jackpot o...

What would you do with half a billion dollars?

The Powerball jackpot is up to $535 million. The grand prize could rank as the 8th richest U.S. lottery jackpot of all time.

The current Powerball prize pool has been growing since June 10 -- meaning there have been 20 straight drawings with no winner.

Powerball has always been a tough ticket to win, but it became even more difficult recently -- thanks to a rule change in October 2015 that tweaked the odds.

Currently, your chances of picking all six winning numbers stand at about one in 292 million. That means you're actually more likely to be killed by an asteroid (1 in 700,000), be struck by lightning while drowning (1 in 183 million) or give birth to quadruplets (1 in 729,000).

The longer odds also made it more likely for the Powerball jackpots to grow to a gargantuan size before a winning ticket is sold.

A $1.6 billion grand prize claimed last year became (by far) the largest U.S. lottery prize ever. It was snagged by three winning tickets on January 13, 2016.

And there's been two other Powerball jackpots that have passed the $400 million mark so far in 2017. A $448 million prize was claimed in June and a $435 million jackpot was won in February.

You can watch the Powerball drawing on WNEP-TV Saturday night immediately before Newswatch 16 at 11.

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