JACKSON HEIGHTS, Queens (PIX11) -- More than $1.7 billion is up for grabs on Friday night and Saturday night for anyone who has bought tickets to the two biggest lottery games, whose drawings are on those evenings.
You must be in it to win it, as the saying goes, but even the organizers of the two games - Mega Millions and Powerball - are encouraging people to be in it only in moderation.
The Mega Millions jackpot is $977 million, and its drawing is Friday night. Then, on Saturday night, Powerball is drawn, with a jackpot of $750 million currently.
Those amounts, as well as strong hopes to win it all, were the focus of a lot of customers' attention at the Pronto Lotto and Vape Shop on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights. The store is the winningest lottery retailer in Queens, and one of the top five in New York City, according to statistics from the New York State Gaming Commission.
A lot of the reason for Pronto Lotto's success is volume of sales at the store. It sells virtually every lottery game available and has kiosks and video monitors showing game results streaming constantly inside the store. So, with both major lottery games at near-record highs in the same weekend, Pronto was the place to go.
Mike Brienza, an MTA bus supervisor, came in on his break to make a Mega Millions purchase.
"I've gotta get lucky someday, right?" he said, after purchasing his ticket. "Why not today?"
Cleo Chong was another Mega Millions customer. Even though she admitted that there are long odds, she was nonetheless counting her winnings.
"I'm going to take 20 percent for donation[s]," she said, "and then the other 80 percent, buy houses or whatever."
Most people who spoke about their lottery ticket purchases said that they were buying just enough tickets to win, but not break the bank.
"You only need one ticket," said Dale Rowe, after making his purchase (he bought two Mega Millions tickets). "It's only, what, six numbers, so only one ticket," he said.
The fewer-the-better approach to ticket purchases, say the operators of both major games, is the best approach.
The Multi-State Lottery Association notes that the odds are very long for winning.
For Mega Millions, the chance of winning is 1 in 302.6 million. The odds improve significantly for a person to match five of the six Mega Million numbers, which results in a $1 million prize. Those odds are 1 in 12.6 million.
To put that into perspective, the 12.6 million to 1 odds are the equivalent of counting everyone in New York City, as well as all residents in both counties of Long Island, and people in Westchester County, north of the city, and Bergen County in New Jersey, and finding that one of them has a winning $1 million ticket.
When it comes to Powerball, there is a 1 in 292 million chance of winning
The odds of winning both Mega Millions and Powerball are unfathomably daunting. It has never been done and is so unlikely that statisticians call it virtual zero.
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