After thinking about how many Super Bowls you could go to, how many hot tubs you could buy, how many cruises you could sail on, etc., trying to find context for a $1,500,000,000 Powerball jackpot is tough.
The Huffington Post did a great story on what you could buy for $1.5 billion (1.5 billion soft serve ice creams cones from the McDonald’s dollar menu) and a lot more foolishness that you can see here:
But the most interesting fact we’ve seen so far: This single jackpot is more than the annual Gross Domestic Product of the following countries:
Antigua and Barbuda
The Solomon Islands
Guinea- Bissau
Grenada
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Samoa
Vanuatu
Saint Vincent and The Grenadines
The Gambia
Comoros
Dominica
Tonga
São Tomé and Príncipe
Kiribati
Tuvalu
(**Source: Knoema, World GDP Ranking 2015, World Data Finder (knoema.com) with data provided by the International Monetary Fund.)
Suffice to say, it’s a lot of money. The cash option will be about $930 million.
The largest jackpot in world history is up for grabs tonight. Players have until 10 p.m. Eastern time to buy tickets in Kentucky.