Winning Powerball Numbers Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018: $78M Jackpot

AUSTIN, TX — There's an old joke about a custodial worker entering a convenience store on work break, mop and bucket in hand, asking what the jackpot was up to that day in surveying the line of people waiting to buy tickets. Told the jackpot had been rolled back to $4 million, the janitor picks up the tools of the trade brusquely while turning back around. "I'm not going to stand in line for that!" the worker mumbles, exiting the establishment in a huff.

The point is that when we dream of riches, we tend to dream big. While $4 million would, for most of us, suffice as an amount on which to subsist forever in comfortable style, it's the bigger jackpots that stir our imagination in envisioning a truly lavish lifestyle.

Saturday's jackpot promises such luxurious comfort. Sure, the odds of winning it are 292 million to one, but the thrill of what's possible — even remotely so against infinitesimal odds — is the price of admission to conjure such fantasies and caviar dreams.

Someone in Merrimack, N.J. is enjoying unimaginable riches. Earlier this month, someone bought the winning ticket for a $570 million prize. That's real money. The jackpot for Saturday is dwarfed by that amount, but is still a substantial number, valued at $78 million or a $48.5 million cash payout option.

This is the kind of money that one would endure waiting in line for, even that apocryphal maintenance worker from the above anecdote. And so: The winning Powerball numbers for Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018 are: 26 - 28 - 47 - 49 - 58 with a red Powerball number of 03.

Best of luck on your Powerball dreams. But in spite of such fantasies, please play responsibly.

>>> Image via Texas Lottery Commission