Lottery Officials Join In Giddiness Over $1.3 Billion Jackpot

DOWNTOWN AUSTIN-UT, TX -- Texas Lottery Commission officials are joining in the hoopla over the record-setting, $1.3 billion jackpot up for grabs in the next Powerball drawing later this week.

In a Sunday tweet, lottery officials sent out a photo of one of their billboards that typically display the potential jackpot in a given week.

Except this time around, the jackpot is so huge that there aren’t enough slots to fit in the numbers to announce it.

“What a wonderful problem to have!” lottery officials tweeted in text accompanying the photo. “Jackpot billboards only go to 999 million!”

Gary Grief, the executive director of the Texas Lottery, added to the giddiness in an interview with the Associated Press: ”Biggest jackpot in the history of the world. Absolutely confirmed,” he told the AP.

The mood probably isn’t as chirpy in Iowa, where the Powerball is run.

On Sunday, the Washington Post reported Sunday executives running the game are under fire in an ongoing jackpot-fixing scandal alleged by prosecutors.

Amid the frenzy of the humongous jackpot--the biggest in North American history--the scandal is all but forgotten, the Post notes. But the fallout from allegations that Powerball’s former security director rigged number-spewing machines ahead of a drawing to cash a manipulated ticket continues.

In late December, the longtime executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association was forced out as a result of the scandal. The MSLA is a nonprofit organization that coordinates Powerball formed by an agreement with U.S. lotteries, including the Texas State Lottery.

But in Texas--a state already associated with all things big--the tweeted billboard dilemma dramatically illustrates the current mania.

Given brisk ticket sales, would-be winners’ enthusiasm doesn’t seem to have diminished either by the jackpot-rigging scandal at Powerball central or by the 292-million-to-one odds of actually hitting the next jackpot.

No one drew the winning numbers for Saturday’s jackpot, which had reached a level of $949 million. As a result, the next draw this Wednesday is for $1.3 billion.