Saturday's Powerball Jackpot If Nobody Wins Wednesday

As the drawing for Wednesday’s record Powerball jackpot of $1.5 billion inches closer and closer, interest continues to be through the roof to see if anyone will be that much richer by the day’s end.

“It’s even crazier than last week,” New York state gaming commission spokeswoman Christy Calicchia told Patch Wednesday afternoon. “And it will just escalate from now until draw time.”

SEE ALSO:

• Wednesday’s Powerball Jackpot: 5 Things *Less* Likely Than Winning
• Powerball Jackpot Grows to World-Record $1.5 Billion for Jan. 13 Drawing
• Powerball Jackpot Reaches $1.5B; Your Odds of Winning
• Powerball Jackpot Climbs to $1.5 Billion After No Winners in Saturday’s Drawing
• Powerball Lottery Winning Numbers Sat., Jan. 9, 2016

Saturday’s Powerball jackpot would be $2 billion, with a $1.24 Billion cash payout, Calicchia told Patch.

That would be more than a $1 billion increase in a week.

How many Powerball tickets have been sold so far?

An email to national Powerball media relations seeking sales information was not immediately returned.

But Calicchia told Patch that as of Wednesday at 10 a.m., sales in New York state alone for Wednesday’s drawing were $210.8 million, which would mean 105.4 tickets sold.

For some perspective, the entire sales for Saturday’s drawing in New York state were $156.1 million.

So, will we see a winner Powerball winner tonight?

The odds are looking good.

The respected data analytics website FiveThirtyEight estimates that 1.008 billion total Powerball tickets will be sold.

That would mean a 97 percent chance of at least one winner for Wednesday’s jackpot, FiveThirtyEight says.