Some would buy a new house with a large backyard and driveway. Others would pay off their debt. A few would get a new car. The vast majority would try to keep their winnings a secret.
This week, the Powerball jackpot rose to $1.8 billion, or an estimated $826.4 million in cash, ahead of Saturday’s drawing, making it the second-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history, according to Powerball.
If no one matches all six numbers on Saturday, the jackpot could become the largest in history. The drawing will be the 42nd since the last Powerball win in May, the longest streak without a top jackpot winner.
Joel Sanchez, 43, buys two lottery tickets a week and has watched the Powerball jackpot balloon through the summer. As he sat in his delivery truck outside George’s Deli in Astoria in Queens on Friday, he imagined how he might wipe away his family’s debt with $1.8 billion.
“I’m talking about mother, brothers, sisters, my kids, my grandkids, my wife,” said Mr. Sanchez. “Everybody gets taken care of.”
For Mr. Sanchez, a delivery driver, the jackpot is “entirely too much money.” He’d be satisfied with $2 million to $3 million, he said. If he won, he would opt for the cash payout and give much of it away.
“My jaw is gonna hit the floor in the heat of the moment,” he said of an imagined win.
Rob Colomban, 67, bought about $30 worth of Powerball and Mega Millions tickets on Friday morning at Smart Choice Beer in Astoria. Several years ago, Mr. Colomban won $10,000 from a lottery ticket he bought in Queens.
Now, he buys a smattering of Powerball and Mega Millions tickets at least once a week at his local bodega.
Mr. Colomban, who is retired, said he would use the money to buy a new house as well as for his son. He would also use some of the money to help pay for his son’s upcoming wedding.
The manager of Smart Choice Beer, Danish Wadhwani, said many regulars buy tickets at his store weekly.
Lottery ticket sales at the store have roughly doubled since the Powerball surpassed the $1 billion mark, said Mr. Wadhwani. He said he expected business to ramp up this weekend, aided by the bars near the shop.
“If you’re drinking, it’s time to make some bad choices, right?” he said.
Dennis Alloy, 62, has owned a Sunoco gas station in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., for 12 years. He said his typical customers were more likely to be daily lottery consumers, not buyers of Powerball or Mega Millions tickets.
“Wednesday night, it was a zoo in here. A lot of people I’ve never seen before decided that $1.7 billion is enough but $100 million is not,” Mr. Alloy said, laughing.
Minutes later, Paulette Green, 68, a lifelong Capitol Hill resident, emerged with a ticket. She said she would first give some of the winnings to charity.
“You have to think about others just like Jesus did,” Ms. Green said. “He thought about the poor before he thought about rich.”
Then, she would likely buy herself a house, she said.
If Raj Patel became the 13th person to win a lottery jackpot of more than a billion dollars in the United States, the first thing he would do is head to a park with a bottle of water.
“I’ll just sit down and calm down, control my blood pressure,” said Mr. Patel, 44. “And If I want to scream, I can go and scream.”
Mr. Patel, who owns Mike’s Smoke Shop in Vauxhall, N.J., would put some money away to pay for the educations of his two children, ages 11 and 17. But there’s “no way” he would tell them that he had become so wealthy.
He would also donate some to homeless shelters. But overall, he wouldn’t change much.
“Not too crazy,” he said. “I don’t want to mess up my life.”
At Sam’s Food Mart in Maplewood, N.J., Jason Peace, 30, said that if he won the jackpot, he would buy a new Jeep Wrangler.
Mr. Peace would confide in his parents — and only his parents — about his winnings, he said. After that, he would diversify his investment portfolios, quit his job and remain “low key.”
“I’d put my two weeks in, respectfully,” he said.
Sal Moa, 29, an employee at NewStar Convenience in Brooklyn, said he had sold tickets to many of the store’s regulars this week.
Some have lamented that it’s pointless to purchase a ticket when “someone in California is going to win it anyway,” he joked. (Several of the biggest jackpots in history have been won by California residents.)
Mr. Moa only buys a ticket when the jackpot crosses the $1 billion threshold. This week, he bought three.
“I don’t usually gamble — it’s against my religion — but who knows? If I win, I’ll give it out to a lot of people,” Mr. Moa said. “Maybe God will forgive me.”
Victor Mather contributed reporting.
Hannah Ziegler is a general assignment reporter for The Times, covering topics such as crime, business, weather, pop culture and online trends.
Sopan Deb is a Times reporter covering breaking news and culture.
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