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With No Winners in Powerball Drawing, Jackpot Is Expected to Surpass $1 Billion

A vendor selling a Powerball ticket in Times Square on Thursday, when the steadily rising lottery jackpot reached $700 million.Credit...Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

In one of the most affluent neighborhoods of New York City, a pocket on the Upper East Side with stately buildings and ice cream shops where scoops can be as expensive as entrees, a street sweeper waited in line on Saturday to make a modest wager to join the economic ranks of those who live on the blocks where he works.

“I’ll definitely buy me a building here,” said the sweeper, Steven Johnson, who lives in a homeless shelter in Harlem, “and put my name on it with a stamp.”

The jackpot for the Powerball lottery, a game played in all but six states, climbed to $949.8 million before it was pulled on Saturday night. The figure lured millions of players to line up at food stores and gas stations around the country to buy a ticket, or often many, many tickets, for the drawing. The winning numbers were 32, 16, 19, 57 and 34, and the Powerball was 13.

But lottery officials said that no ticket matched all six Powerball numbers, The Associated Press reported, meaning that the record jackpot is expected to rise to $1.3 billion for the next drawing on Wednesday.

By Saturday afternoon, officials with the lottery calculated that tickets were selling, on average, at a pace of more than $7,700 a second, or almost $28 million an hour.

It was a staggering and record-setting prize that stoked ambitions, however infinitesimal the odds, of being vaulted to a stratosphere of wealth occupied by moguls and superstars. The jackpot would actually amount to a mere $558 million if the winner chose to be paid in a lump sum, but that would still be more than enough for those waiting in line to dream of a glitzier, more comfortable life.

Mr. Johnson, for one, had already envisioned what life would be like as one of the city’s elite. To help make it a reality, he bought 10 tickets, which cost $2 each. Like many other would-be winners, he said he would spread some of his wealth and become a philanthropist. He said he would support the fellow residents of his shelter.

“I’d take everyone out and give them a couple dollars,” Mr. Johnson, 47, said. “Like, a million apiece.”

The jackpot was not just the largest in Powerball history, New York State lottery officials said, but also the largest of any lottery game in the country. The jackpot started at $40 million on Nov. 7 and rolled over 19 times, with no one matching all six numbers. Lottery officials said they would not know whether a winning ticket had been drawn until after midnight.

As the prize crept upward, reaching $528.5 million on Wednesday, it attracted many who were not regular players. At one point on Saturday, lottery retailers in New York State were selling more than $1.7 million in tickets an hour, officials said.

In all, more than $120 million worth of tickets was sold in New York for Saturday’s drawing, said Gardner S. Gurney, director of the division of lottery for the New York State Gaming Commission.

He reminded players to check their tickets; even if they did not win hundreds of millions of dollars, they still had an opportunity to win smaller prizes. Though no one won the jackpot in Wednesday’s drawing, more than 600,000 tickets sold in New York yielded some money.

On an overcast day, lines at some stores in New York spilled out the door with people waiting to purchase tickets. Ahmed Raj, a clerk at a small 24-hour bodega on Lexington Avenue near 79th Street, said the scene at his store had been much the same since Friday.

Many were spending $20 on tickets, Mr. Raj, 36, said. One person bought $500 worth.

Phenix Hall, who was standing in line with cash in hand, said she figured mostly middle- and working-class people would be buying tickets. The wealthy, she added, “know the futility” of the lottery.

“They’re not as crazy as people like me who will spend $6,” Ms. Hall, 55, said.

Michael Gordon, who sells real estate, said he rarely played the lottery but the jackpot was too big to ignore. A friend who lives in a state without Powerball encouraged him to buy $20 worth of tickets for the both of them.

Asked whether they would squabble over who got a bigger cut, Mr. Gordon, 50, shook his head and smiled. “That should be our worst problem,” he said.

Bill Torres, who owns a copy shop on East 83rd Street, said his wife had pushed him to buy $10 worth of tickets.

“If it’s $20 or $30 million, people say, ‘Ah, don’t bother,’ ” Mr. Torres, 68, said. “But if it gets to $500 or $600 million, suddenly everybody’s playing.”

Annie Prushad, 58, joined a pool with several colleagues who work in security at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, buying a total of $50 worth of tickets. She, like many others, already had plans for what to do with the money.

She said she sends $200 a month to her family in Guyana, her homeland, and if she won, she would add a few zeros to that sum. But, of course, she would do something nice for herself, too: “I would also go on a vacation.”

Birane Diop took a break from stocking produce at a grocery store on Madison Avenue to wait in line for a ticket. Mr. Diop, 75, said he might take a permanent break from work if he won.

“I would go back to my family in Senegal,” he said, “and be king.”

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: New Yorkers Dream as Powerball Jackpot Nears $1 Billion. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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