If your Powerball Lottery Ticket has the numbers 8-17-22-42-47 and Powerball number 21, you might want to reconsider your retirement options: you won.
With over 91 percent of the winning combinations sold before Saturday's drawing, it's more likely than not that at least one person has beaten the 80-million-to-one odds and taken home a share — or even all — of the estimated $295 million jackpot.
With thousands of people lining up earlier Saturday to participate in the ticket-buying frenzy, that jackpot could have pushed even higher. At $295 million, the prize would be the third-largest lottery jackpot in United States history and the second-largest Powerball prize ever.
"Somebody's going to get hit by lightning, and somebody's going to win the Powerball," said Pam Hobbs in Sioux Falls, S.D.
The lottery is played 21 states and the District of Columbia. Residents in states where the lottery is not available were rushing across state lines, crushing some border communities with long lines and crowds.
Convoys of car-poolers from Las Vegas, the nation's gambling capital, caravaned across Hoover Dam and down U.S. Highway 93 into Arizona where Rose Larsen, owner of Rose's Den café, has been selling about 60,000 tickets a day along with the roadhouse's homemade meatloaf and barbecued ribs.
In New York City, a group of bicyclists pedaled more than 35 miles from Manhattan's Central Park to Stamford, Conn., where the cyclists said they bought about $5 worth of tickets each after the two-hour trip.
"I have six kids I have to take care of," said Dexter Waiters, 43. "That will buy a lot of everything. Maybe I can even quit my job."
The Powerball frenzy has proven especially chaotic for Connecticut because neighboring New York and New Jersey do not participate in the multi-state lottery.
Greenwich, Conn., suspended sales Friday because the city was swamped with New York residents. On Saturday, sales resumed to thinner crowds, to the benefit of those who knew the Friday ban was going to be lifted.
"We figured everyone would think Greenwich would be closed today, so we figured 'Let's try it,'" Jen Molloy said.
In other areas, customers and sales clerks didn't get as lucky. Connecticut as a whole sold $11,000 in tickets per minute.
Sales figures in Iowa were expected to top Wednesday's numbers, when 1,600 machines cranked out an average of one ticket every minute.
"I just hope someone wins soon," said Delicia Thompson, a cashier at a U-Stop Convenience Shop in Lincoln, Nebraska. "You can't get anything done besides Powerball."
Workers at a factory in Tennessee chipped in $24,000 to buy tickets in a quick-riches gambit that stunned the owner of the store where they bought the tickets. It took an hour for the lottery terminal to spit out the $1 tickets.
"We see a lot of big plays, but that was an exaggerated play," said Arun Mahtani, owner of Lucky Lotto in Franklin, Ky., near the Tennessee line.
The biggest Powerball jackpot ever is the $295.7 million won in 1998 by a group of factory workers in Ohio. The richest lottery prize in U.S. history is the $363 million Big Game jackpot, won last year by two players in Illinois and Michigan.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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