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Over Half A Billion Dollars Awaits Lucky Powerball Winner(s)

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – $550 million.

That's what is waiting for someone if they manage to hit all of the winning numbers in Wednesday night's multi-state Powerball drawing. Cash value of the jackpot is $360.2 million.

Floridians lead the way in buying Powerball tickets. Overall, Powerball officials expect more than 189 million tickets will be sold for the jackpot. According to ABCNews.com, Powerball officials said they were selling more than 105,000 tickets every minute before the drawing.

Franklin Calderon bought a ticket Wednesday at a Doral convenience store. What would he do with the money if he won?

"Half of it I would give to my mother, the other half I would invest and make it grow," said Calderon.

Store clerk Guillermo Valle has been non-stop selling tickets and customers are quite demanding. "Everybody wants the winning ticket," he said.

So what are your chances of beating the odds, which according to CNN are 1 in 175,223,510? You're more likely to get hit by lightning, hit a hole in one, and be attacked by a shark.

Here are some odds to consider, via the Huffington Post:

  • Hitting Powerball - 175,223,510 to 1
  • Death by vending machine - 112,000,000 to 1
  • Picking the perfect NCAA Tournament bracket - 13,460,000 to 1
  • Having identical quadruplets - 13,000,000 to 1
  • Dating a supermodel - 88,000 to 1
  • Dying in an asteroid apocalypse - 12,500 to 1

But if you did hit the jackpot, you could buy quite a bit including: every single item in the Neiman Marcus holiday catalogue for roughly $2.6 million; 20 percent of the Chicago Bears; a Greek Island; you could fund the government for a little more than an hour; or you could build the biggest home in the world.

A Powerball winner could also make a major sports purchase. According to Forbes.com, the Miami Heat and Miami Marlins are worth $457 million and $450 million respectively, which would leave a little pocket cash after buying them.

Speaking of the Heat, you'd be wealthier than the Big Three combined. Their salaries total $217.6 million, so you could re-sign the group if you could get them to agree to their previous contract price.

You could always buy half of the Miami Dolphins, which is valued at $1.06 billion.

But if sports aren't your thing, CBS4 news director Liz Roldan pointed out you could also buy 300,000 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes.

Not bad for a two dollar ticket.

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