Powerball Winning Numbers for May 18, 2013 To Purse Jackpot of $550 Million; Time & Live Streaming of Drawing

Update - 1:11 p.m. ET - Jackpot grows to a record $600 million

The Powerball jackpot continues to get bigger & fatter.

Powerball officials announced on Thursday, May 16, that the jackpot prize for the next lotto draw has hit $550 million--the second largest in Powerball history and the third largest in American lottery. The increase in the pot prize is attributed to the robust sales of lotto tickets across the country.

Played in 43 states, Washington D.C. and the US Virgin Islands, Powerball has been the talk of almost everybody in the streets--most of them betters who've already spent their several dollars on tickets. With the prizes continuing to rise, a growing number of people are trying their luck on the game in hopes of becoming an instant multimillionaire.

According to USA Today, Virginia has been selling lotto tickets at a rate of 9,500 tickets per minute. If this continues, the state could sell a total of 4.7 million tickets on Saturday alone.

So far, the pot has also been rapidly increasing. In just the past few weeks, the prize for the lottery game grew by hundreds of millions. And just a day after Wednesday night's draw, the prize has increased by close to $100 million right away. From the announced May 18 jackpot of $475 million on Wednesday, the pot rose to a staggering $550 on Thursday. And if that isn't enough, reports say it could reach record-breaking numbers in the days leading up to the Saturday night's draw.

"When you consider all the money that's going to be on the line in the next few days with lottery drawings, it's just an eye-popping amount," shared Multi-State Lottery Association spokeswoman Mary Neubauer, as reported by USA Today.

With the still growing number of people purchasing Powerball tickets, officials say the Saturday night's pot may break the record set in November 2012, when the prize reached $587.5 million.

"It usually took a handful of months, if not several months, for a jackpot to reach this large amount," the spokeswoman said reported Fox News. "Now it's achieving that within a handful of weeks. I think the redesign is achieving exactly what we had wanted it to achieve, which is the bigger, faster-growing jackpot."

The next Powerball lottery draw will be on Saturday, May 18, at 10:59 pm ET. The winning numbers will be posted on powerball.com, with the live draws streamed on powerballlive.com.