ATLANTA (WXIA) -- Wednesday night, a lucky Georgian could take home $107 million after taxes as a lump sum payment if he's the single winner of the $250 million Powerball jackpot.
A player who opts for monthly payments from the lottery drawing would end up with $172 million stretched out over 29 years.
Beyond the lucky ticket holder, another big winner in Georgia is the HOPE Scholarship.
Powerball has already brought in more than $13 million in ticket sales, which has translated to 81 cents out of every $2 ticket going to the HOPE Scholarship and pre-K funding in Georiga.
Georgia Lottery officials say a big surge in sales as the drawing grows closer may take those totals even higher.
"This is when people really get excited. It's taken getting the total over $100 million for people to think about buying tickets, and now at $250 million, with a possibility of rolling over to $300 million, it will start to cause a frenzy and then more people will play and buy a Powerball ticket and that's better for Hope and Pre-K," said Georgia Lottery director Margaret DeFrancisco.
Twenty-six percent of all Georgia Lottery ticket sales go directly to fund pre-K and HOPE. Last year, that meant $846 million went to the HOPE Scholarship fund from the Georgia Lottery. This year the contribution is expected to be about the same.
Along with other funding, HOPE expects to award some $605 million in scholarships, but that figure is down nearly $150 million from a year ago..