Your Odds of Winning Powerball Jackpot

Updated at 12:25 p.m.

BALTIMORE, MD — The odds of winning Wednesday’s $500 million Powerball jackpot, the largest payoff in nearly a year, are slim, but tickets are still selling at a brisk pace.

A statistics professor at Metropolitan State University in Colorado calculates the odds of winning at about 1 in 292.2 million.

If you still want to take a chance – someone has to win, right -- you have a better chance of hitting the jackpot if you let the computer pick the numbers for you. The Multi-State Lottery Association, which operates the Powerball game, says about 75 percent of winning tickets occur when the numbers are selected by a computer.

Tonight’s drawing for the jackpot would be the biggest winner since a $564.1 million jackpot was won Feb. 11, 2015, according to the Powerball website.

The cash option payout for Wednesday’s drawing is estimated at $306 million.

The Powerball drawings are held every Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. Eastern time. Check for results at mdlottery.com or on the MD Lottery mobile app to see if you’ve won.

The Maryland Lottery is one of 45 lotteries nationwide that participate in the Powerball drawing.

Powerball tickets can be purchased at any lottery vendor, including 7-Eleven, Royal Farms, Giant, Safeway and Wegmans stores in Maryland.

»What would you do with the jackpot? Tell us in the comments.