Powerball $500,000,000

The drawing for one of the biggest jackpots in U.S. history will take place Wednesday night. The $500 million Powerball jackpot is up for grabs, and millions of people across the country are hoping their ticket is the winning one. Half a billion dollars. One lucky person, or persons, could become a lot richer Wednesday night. So what are your odds of winning? In short: not good. The odds of winning are 1 in 175,000,000.

So what does that mean? It means you are 14,000 times more likely to hit a hole in one as an amateur golfer. It means you are 270 times more likely to be dealt a Royal Flush in poker. And it means you are about 1,500 times more likely to visit the emergency room because of a pogo stick injury. But let’s say you beat the odds. What could you buy with $500 million? Say the cost of a year of private college costs $50,000 a year. You could send someone to school for 10,000 years.

Costa Concordia Captain Francesco Schettino was at the helm when the ship hit rocks and sank in 2012, killing 32 people. He was accused of taking the liner too close to the shore and then abandoning ship with passengers and crew still on board. Schettino denied the charges and said he was being made a scapegoat. His lawyers had argued that it was a collective failure of the ship's crew and others should share the blame for the disaster.