[imagesource:walesonline]

We’re dreaming big with the US Powerball jackpot that has swelled to be the seventh largest in its history.

The current American Powerball (lower case ‘b’, btw) jackpot is sitting pretty at – wait for it – $725 million, or roughly R13,5 billion.

Imagine life with that amount of cash in the bank for a moment. Almost unimaginable, I know. But hey, the point of buying a lottery ticket, other than hoping to strike it lucky with your infinitesimally small chances of winning, is that it allows you to at least dream.

Unlike our lotteries, though, if you win the Powerball jackpot you won’t receive that full amount tax-free and there’s also a deduction if you choose to take a one-time lump sum payment as opposed to having it spread out over time. Forbes breaks it down:

The winner—facing odds of one in 292.2 million—has the option to receive the $725 million in 30 annual installments over 29 years, or as an up-front, pretax lump sum of $366.2 million in cash.

No bother, really, because you’d still win enough that you and anybody you care for will never have to work again.

The chances are slim, but that just means that the lottery has been able to reach record-breaking jackpots several times over the last two years, including a $2,04 billion jackpot won in November, the largest ever:

The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot decreased from one in about 175.2 million to one in 292.2 million in 2015, when the lottery increased the pool of white ball numbers from 59 to 69 while decreasing the pool of Powerball numbers from 35 to 26.

The Powerball will hold its next drawing tonight US time and tomorrow at 5AM our time.

We are in no way affiliated with Lottoland but the site does offer South Africans the chance to buy tickets for the US Powerball (here).

There is only one major catch – Lottoland’s terms and conditions indicate a maximum payout for customers of R500 million, irrespective of the size of the win.

Good luck to you if you decide to dabble and dare to dream.

[source:forbes]