As the Powerball frenzy continues, people across the nation are rushing out to buy their ticket to a dream, but winning the jackpot can sometime translate to major losses. NBC's Erica Hill reports on the lottery "curse" and two September Powerball winners how their lives have changed, for better and for worse.
By NBC News staff and wire services
Updated at 1:35 p.m. ET: Someone could win $550 million in Wednesday night's Powerball drawing, the largest in the game's history.
The jackpot jumped up from half a billion dollars on Wednesday, according to the Powerball website. The new jackpot would carry a cash value of $360.2 million before taxes.
Lottery officials say they now believe there is a 75 percent chance the winning numbers will be drawn Wednesday night, The Associated Press reported. Powerball is played across 42 states, plus Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands.
As big as this week's Powerball jackpot is, it's not the largest lottery prize ever. That mark is held by the $656 million Mega Millions jackpot that was split by three ticket buyers earlier this year. The previous biggest Powerball prize was $365 million in 2006, shared by several ConAgra Foods workers in Lincoln, Neb.
Since the jackpot is an estimate, the prize money could be increased as the drawing nears, the AP reported.
Related: 11 things more likely to happen than winning the Powerball jackpot
There were no Powerball winners for Saturday's drawing, in which $325 million was up for grabs.?The winning numbers Saturday were 22-32-37-44-50 with Powerball 34, according to the Powerball lottery's website. There were 10 winners of $1 million and one winner of $2 million.
The huge jackpot has brought a flood of ticket sales. "It?s been crazy," said the manager of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Westminster, Colo., that sold 2,000 tickets in 11 hours on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
Ticket buyers are not only dreaming of living large, but already brewing ways in which they might quit their job.
"I was thinking maybe I should hire a marching band to help me (quit)," Joe Cooke of Illinois told Reuters, after buying $50 in Powerball tickets Wednesday morning. "Or maybe I'll just walk right into office and moon him." Cooke, 29, fields customer service calls for a financial institution, which he describes as listening to "rich, mean people" complaining all day, Reuters reported.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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