Powerball Winning Numbers For $900 Million Jackpot, Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016 UPDATE

DOWNTOWN AUSTIN-UT, TX -- The wait is over.

Saturday’s Powerball winning numbers were: 16, 19, 32, 34, 57 and a Powerball number of 13.

The word “frenzy,” is often overused,and that’s especially true when it comes to Saturday’s Powerball numbers.

Often, hubbubs of activity occur in every city that don’t always graduate to “frenzy” status. But when referring to people’s quest to win the latest humongous Powerball jackpot tonight, it’s safe to call it a frenzy.

Heck, It’s a full-fledged mania.

• Check back here for the winning numbers as soon as they’re pulled at 9:59 p.m. Texas time.

In an emailed response to questions from Patch, lottery spokeswoman Kelly Cripe detailed Texas sales of Jackpot tickets as would-be millionaires vie for their chance of hitting all numbers for a prize payout now estimated at $900 million.

Cumulative Texas Powerball sales were $11.5 million as of 1 p.m. Friday. Powerball ticket sales were being logged at a rate of $26,019 per minute, she added. Sales for national Powerball sales were even greater: $12.9 million in sales at a rate of $214,972 per minute, Cripe wrote.

Such huge numbers can be seen as an abstraction. But long lines seen at stores throughout Texas as people pick their numbers are proof enough of that sales volume.

Last Wednesday, no one won the $500 million Powerball jackpot, which in its own right ranked at the sixth-largest offered in North America and the biggest prize since one shared by players in Texas, North Carolina and Puerto Rico.

Now, tonight’s jackpot is exponentially bigger at about $900 million, with an estimated cash payout value of $558 million. And if no one’s wins tonight, it will grow even more to an estimated $1.3 billion.

That’s billion, with a “b.”

But in contemplating one’s own dreams of riches, two more “b” words come to mind: Burst and balloon. And while no reasonable, non-sadist, person would ever want to wantonly dampen others’ spirits, it’s important to know the actual odds of winning in considering whether to buy into the Powerball frenzy.

Business Insider provided a sobering analysis of the odds of winning Wednesday’s draw, which yields further context to the chances of winning tonight.

The publications starts with the basic premise of the game of chance, consisting of five numbered white balls chosen from a drum containing 69 balls and a single red ball chosen from a drum of 26 balls.

The upshot: In order to have won the last jackpot by perfectly matching each number, one would’ve negotiated from among 11.2 million possible combinations to draw the five white balls. Multiply that by the 26 red balls, and you get a total of 291.2 million total possible Powerball draws.

What this means is that for every ticket purchased, there was on Wednesday a 1 in 292 million chance of winning, or a 0.00000034% probability. Stated another way: A single ticket had a 99.99999966% chance of losing the jackpot, according to Business Insider.

“So you’re saying there is a chance?” I hear some of you muttering hopefully. Well, yes, there is a chance--an infinitesimally tiny chance, but a chance nonetheless.