LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Jackpots are up ahead of the next Mega Millions draw and the next Powerball draw.
Travis Ragsdale with the Kentucky Lottery says, "Well, I think that everybody has kind of gotten used to these huge jackpots from both the Powerball and Mega Millions. People get excited when they start to get up there. We've actually just gotten word that they have raised the jackpot estimates for both drawings for Powerball and Mega Millions."
This week's Powerball jackpot is $615 million and the Mega Millions is $450 million. We've all asked ourselves what we would do if we won the lottery, and here's what a couple of people had to say.
One woman we spoke with, Angela Bragg, says she would, "Get us out of debt, definitely get us out of debt and help several charities."
Another woman, Kathy Hatmaker says, "If I won the lottery, I would give 10 percent of it to my church and probably would buy us a house."
These ladies say they would also consider doing some traveling. Although no one in the Bluegrass has hit the big jackpot for some time, several people have claimed smaller winnings, even in the millions of dollars. People who've won and want to win, aren't short on ideas of how they'd spend the money.
Ragsdale says, "You know we had somebody recently who hit about...she won about $150,000 on a scratch-off ticket and she wanted to give that money back to the community. And so, there's stories like that all the time where people want to be philanthropic with these winnings. But they also want that vacation, that new car, paying off the house payments. There are all sorts of different stories that people have and different ideas that people have of what they'll do with the money."
We also had some ideas of how either of these jackpots could be spent. With these winnings, you could go to more than 300,000 Taylor Swift concerts, you could buy 21 different Rolls-Royce "Boat Tails", or you could purchase a $400 million 531-foot yacht — similar to the one the prime minister of the UAE owns. No matter what you'd buy, it's important to remember that these games are just fun.
Ragsdale says, "You know, keep in mind that it is fun. We're trying to have fun here and there's the wishful thinking of what might be with the jackpot. And it's important to remember about funding college scholarships as well. You know, that's something that's really near and dear to all of our hearts at the Kentucky Lottery because it is such an important part — in fact, it is the only part of our mission."
