California Joins the Powerball!
Wednesday April 10th 2013The state of California welcomed the sale of Powerball tickets across 21,000 retailers on 8th April 2013, and is looking forward to its first inclusive draw which is being held tonight in Sacramento, California instead of its usual location in Florida. As Powerball excitement sweeps the state, local news reports that a staggering $3,101,816 worth of tickets were sold in the first day, making this a national record for tickets sold in a 24 hour period.
The Powerball jackpot on offer tonight is a double rollover estimated at $60 million, so although it isn’t the biggest seen this year (far from it – the jackpot of $338 million on Saturday 23rd March 2013 is the biggest in 2013 to date), it is still one of the biggest jackpots currently on offer throughout the state. California already sells Mega Millions tickets, which has an eight times rollover jackpot of $66 million on offer in Friday’s draw, currently the biggest jackpot available in the state.
However, the Powerball has the potential to dwarf the jackpots on offer by the Mega Millions, which has not come close to matching its jackpot heyday of $656 million, and it is this potential which has led to Californian’s scrambling to buy their tickets. Plus, not only could the Golden State see its first Powerball winner in the draw tonight, but state education will benefit too. Approximately 30% of lottery revenue goes towards the state’s public school budget, with the vast majority of that (76%) earmarked for K-12th Grade schools.
With some reports stating that the additional Powerball lottery ticket sales in California will see an extra $50 million annually going into the state education pot, not to mention retailers seeing an explosion in lottery ticket sales as people rush to the tills, its looks like there could very well be a lot more than a single winner on the Powerball in California.
To read more about the Powerball and to buy your tickets, visit the Powerball page on Lottery.net.