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CNN Live At Daybreak

Powerball Jackpot Still Up for Grabs

Aired August 20, 2001 - 07:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Well, no one had all the right numbers to win Saturday's $120 million Powerball jackpot. That means even more money for the Wednesday night drawing. Let's see what we could expect.

Joe Mahoney is spokesperson for the Multi-State Lottery Association and he joins us from Des Moines at the place where they draw the actual numbers. How you doing, Joe?

JOE MAHONEY, MULTI-STATE LOTTERY ASSOCIATION: I'm doing good. Good morning to you.

PHILLIPS: Good morning.

MAHONEY: This is where the magic happens.

PHILLIPS: Wow. I'm just seeing that. That's pretty -- can you fire it up for us?

MAHONEY: No, the machines are all locked up and we don't bring those out until the drawing.

PHILLIPS: Oh, OK.

MAHONEY: I can't even open the machines myself.

PHILLIPS: We have to be behaved.

MAHONEY: Yes.

PHILLIPS: All right, we're talking about $175 million now, is that right?

MAHONEY: $175 million but on Tuesday about 12:00 Central Time we're going to take a look at sales up to that point and then reevaluate whether we should drive the jackpot even higher. For example, we had set Saturday's jackpot last Wednesday for $120 million. On Friday we bumped it up to $128 million and it ended up being like $129.1 million estimated jackpot.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Now, no one won the Powerball but you did give out some money, right?

MAHONEY: Yes, that's one of the things about Powerball, it's like it kind of gets lost in the shuffle. Everyone thinks about the big jackpot. We actually gave away more than $10 million after Saturday night's draw. There was tens of thousands of -- well, actually, hundreds of thousands of winners. We had 23 people that matched five numbers, that were just one Powerball away from winning the whole thing. But they won $100,000. So we do give away a lot of money and the more people that play, the more prizes we actually give away.

PHILLIPS: What's the biggest jackpot you've ever seen?

MAHONEY: Well, the biggest Powerball jackpot was $295 million about three years ago. That was the number two jackpot all time. The largest jackpot was $365 million a couple of years ago. But this jackpot for Wednesday night, whether it's $175 million or whether it's a little bit higher, will be the third largest Powerball jackpot in history and the fifth largest jackpot worldwide in history.

PHILLIPS: I have to ask you this, Joe, I've lived in a number of states where there are lotteries and a lot of times you see folks buying these tickets that really shouldn't be buying the tickets. They can't afford to do it. Are there any efforts that you put forward to sort of, I don't know, maybe a disclaimer or try and prevent that from happening?

MAHONEY: Well, I mean a lot of the states do put out ads when it gets this high saying play responsibly. But as far as, you know, whether or not someone can afford to play it or not, I think what we're going to have to look at, this is fun money. This is entertainment dollars we're talking about here. If you go to a movie, you're going to spend $10 on admission. You're going to spend money on popcorn and all of that. We're talking about a dollar here. So I mean people choose how they want to spend their entertainment dollars.

But obviously we don't want people, you know, playing more than what they can afford.

PHILLIPS: Very good.

Joe Mahoney, Powerball lottery spokesperson, thanks so much for being with us. Cool background, Joe.

MAHONEY: Thanks.

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