Lottery fever gripped the United States on Wednesday ahead of a Powerball drawing with an estimated jackpot of $550 million, the second highest in the nation's history.

Nobody has won the semi-weekly grand prize for Powerball -- available in 42 states, the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands -- since October 6, swelling the kitty for whoever holds the winning six-number combination.

With Wednesday's drawing set for 10:59 pm eastern time (0359 GMT), the odds of winning stood at one in 175.2 million -- compared to the one in a million chance of being struck by lightning in a given year.

"I'm buying this lottery ticket so I can put my pencil down and walk out of my office and live my dreams," quipped a 40-something woman named Szami as she bought a batch of tickets for herself and friends at a Washington corner store, declining to give her family name.

In the state of Maryland alone, Powerball wagers were being sold for $2 each at a dizzying rate of 158 per second on Wednesday morning.

"That will go up, obviously, as the day goes on," Carole Everett, communications director for the Maryland state lottery, told AFP by telephone from Baltimore.

In Pennsylvania, home to 15 jackpot winners in the past decade, tickets were being sold at a rate of around 16,000 per minute, state lottery spokeswoman Elizabeth Brassell told AFP.

"It's phenomenal. There's a lot of excitement in the air," added Kimberly Chopin of the Louisiana state lottery, which had sold $2.5 million in tickets by mid-afternoon Wednesday -- compared to $1.1 million a week earlier.

The biggest jackpot in US lottery history -- $640 million -- was claimed by MegaMillions players in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland who all held tickets bearing the same winning number.

Lottery winnings in the United States, unlike those in Europe, are subject to taxation. Winners typically get a choice between an annuity spread over many years or a reduced amount paid out in a lump sum.

Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, which oversees Powerball, said the odds of winning have actually improved since the recent elimination of red bonus balls 36 through 39.

Winning numbers, selected every Wednesday and Saturday, are made up of five out of 59 white balls plus one out of 35 red "Powerballs" from which the game gets its name.

Besides the jackpot, players can win as much as $1 million if they hold tickets with most but not all of the drawn numbers, but Strutt told CNN Money many people are unaware of such secondary prizes, which end up going unclaimed.

VietNamNet/AFP