The Powerball Lottery now sits at a hefty $550 million jackpot while the Mega Millions Lottery is close behind at $445 million.
The closest place for many Reno residents to buy a lottery ticket is in Gold Ranch, but the lines there can get pretty long. Here at Channel 2 we conducted a little experiment, to see if there's a quicker way to buy.
As we leave the Channel 2 parking lot, we start the timers and head to our first stop at Gold Ranch. We want to know just how long it'll take before we have a lottery ticket in our hand.
As we pull off of exit 2 in Verdi, and find ourselves a place to park, our timer has reached the 18 minute mark. So far, so good, but now we wait.
Minute-by-minute, the time passes as hurried clerks get eager dreamers what they hope can be the next big winning ticket.
"Being that large, you have to take a stab at it,” said Carson City resident Howard Fisher.
“Everybody, if I win, I’ll buy lunch,” said Edward Martinez of Carson City.
After 25 minutes have passed, it's finally our turn, we hand over the cash and a ticket prints off. Looking down at our timer, with the drive included, it's taken 43 minutes so far.
All things considered, that's pretty good, especially when residents tell you how long they've waited before.
“Last time when I was here, which was years ago, there was a line down to the highway,” said Martinez.
Now for phase two of our experiment, we drive to Truckee. We reset our timers, head up I-80, and keep our eyes peeled for a gas station that sells lottery tickets. Our destination is the 76 in downtown Truckee.
"A lady dropped $1,000 on us yesterday, yeah a lot of excitement, said district manager Shawn Williams.
To our pleasure, there's not a single person in line, which come to find out, isn’t always the case.
"When we have a busy day like that, we'll open up our second register, make sure we're available just for the lottery,” said Williams.
Once again, we pull out our cash, place our order, and then we're off. The drive to Truckee took 35 minutes, but with only a two minute wait time, that brings this trip’s total to just 37 minutes.
Now it's time for the moment of truth. As we drive back and pull into Channel 2, we take a look at our timers. With a winning time of one hour and two minutes, just 10 minutes shorter than the Truckee trip, the Gold Ranch trip takes home the jackpot.
If you want to see which option saves you the most time, we found that the difference largely depends on the wait at Gold Ranch. If you still want a ticket, the Mega-millions drawing is Friday night, the Powerball numbers are pulled on Saturday.
