DALLAS — We can't say you didn't try.
No one won the $1.2 billion Powerball jackpot Monday night. But plenty of people tried, especially here in Texas.
Numbers released from the Texas Lottery showed that Texans dropped nearly $17 million -- $16,695,498, to be exact -- on lottery tickets Monday, including a peak of $2.4 million in a single hour.
The high water mark of sales was during the 6 p.m. hour, presumably when y'all stopped off for a ticket between work and Halloween festivities.
In fact, every hour starting at 2 p.m. saw at least $1 million in lottery sales:
2 p.m: $1,133,564
3 p.m: $1,402,756
4 p.m: $1,838,428
5 p.m: $2,331,594
6 p.m: $2,424,510
7 p.m: $1,767,504
8 p.m: $1,314,898
Aside from the thrill of the chase, it was all for nothing. At least for the big prize.
No one - in Texas or across the U.S. - purchased the lucky numbers: 13-19-36-39-59, plus Powerball 13 and Powerplay 3. Doing so would have won the $1 billion jackpot.
Then again, the odds of that happening are 1 in 292.2 million. Monday night's whiff extends this Powerball's streak; no one has won the prize since the first drawing on Aug. 3. Since then, the Powerball has grown to the fourth-largest in U.S. lottery history.
A 2016 jackpot reached $1.586 billion. The massive jackpot over the summer, which a lucky person won in July, reached $1.337 billion.
Not everyone went home empty-handed on Halloween. Several people won $1 million prizes in the drawing, matching the first five numbers, including two winners in Houston and Cedar Park.
A few across the country even won $2 million by matching the first five, plus the powerplay.
But perfection with the Powerball remained elusive. And for now, so did that $1.2 billion.