New York Lottery this week entered the multistate Powerball drawing and Lottery Officials are eager to see if this will result in the state coffers being boosted. New York State started selling tickets on Sunday and the jackpot has already passed $115 million. It is not yet known whether there was any winner from Wednesday’s draw.
Convenience stores in Buffalo and surrounding suburbs were randomly checked and other than a few exceptions, there was no noticeable increase in sales.

The owner of Sunoco Food Mart reported that many people are buying the Powerball instead of the Mega and the New York Lotto because the Powerball jackpot is much higher than the Mega Millions. People were also excited to see what the Powerball was all about.

The New York Lottery is banking on people like Thomas Adams and Raymond Manuzuk of Buffalo who usually stay away from the lottery but take a chance on it when the jackpot gets big.

Carolyn Hapeman, Lottery spokeswoman reported that they hoped that with so many people buying tickets for the same game it will result in these jackpots rolling up faster and bigger than ever before.

Tickets for Saturday’s Powerball drawing are available at over 16,000 licensed retail locations across the country and can be purchased until 9 pm on the day of the drawing.

Players are required to select five numbers from 1 to 59 in the upper section of a game panel and one Powerball number from 1 to 39 in the lower section of the same game panel for every game they want to play. They can also choose Quick Pick to allow the computer to randomly select numbers for them in order to save time. A player who matches all five numbers plus the Powerball is the winner of the jackpot.