GREENWICH, Connecticut -- In the latest example of the Powerball craze, Greenwich officials got permission to suspend ticket sales Friday because they were overwhelmed by would-be millionaires from out of state.
Players continued to inundate this wealthy city in anticipation of a Saturday drawing that is expected to have a jackpot worth nearly $300 million.
The game is offered in 21 states and the District of Columbia, but not in New York. Greenwich is the first Connecticut town on a major commuter rail line out of New York City.
"You also have to understand, it's such a large jackpot," said Dominic Pizzimenti of Astoria, New York, who took a train to Greenwich. "Maybe if we hit the jackpot we can afford to live in Greenwich and complain like everybody else."
The jackpot is expected to be the second highest in Powerball history and the third largest U.S. lottery jackpot ever. It rolled over Wednesday night after none of the tickets sold for that drawing matched.
"Statistically, because of the way the game is designed, the likelihood of hitting jackpots this high is in the range of about once every four years," said Powerball creator Ed Stanek, commissioner of the Iowa Lottery, where the game originates.
Customers standing outside a Greenwich gas station in a downpour Thursday night were sympathetic to the town's suspension of ticket sales to an extent.
Inside the gas station, store manager Varinder Kumer said he won't miss the long lines once someone finally hits the jackpot.
"It's too many problems. People get angry," he said. Tickets were to be available elsewhere in Connecticut on Friday, including towns further north on the railroad line such as Stamford, Darien and Norwalk, the state lottery said.
Iowa's 1,600 lottery machines were selling an average of a ticket a minute prior to Wednesday night's drawing. Saturday's crunch will be worse, Stanek said. "Saturday drawings are always richer than Wednesday drawings," he said. "Our advice is certainly to buy the tickets as early as possible and not wait until Saturday."
The biggest Powerball jackpot ever is the $295.7 million won in 1998 by a group of factory workers in Ohio.
