You've got to be in it to win it. With perhaps $1.3 billion (U.S.) up for grabs in Wednesday night's Powerball draw, Canadians are making sure they're in the running to cash in on the whopping winnings.

Cobourg, Ont., entrepreneur Jeremy Coulis commissioned his Michigan-based parents to buy him tickets. He plans on opening his own vodka and gin distillery in the near future, and said if he wins he would get his business going, payoff his house and donate to different charities.

“Of course, I would also take care of my parents,” he said Sunday, laughing.

After lottery officials said no ticket matched all six numbers following Saturday's draw for a record jackpot of nearly $950 million (U.S.), the prize money rolls over, and so the big prize in the next draw, Wednesday night, is expected to hit the equivalent of more than $1.8 billion Canadian.

The next Powerball winner, whenever it comes, will be the largest jackpot in history, lottery officials said, doubling a $656-million Mega Millions drawing in 2012. This boost has spawned a frenzy of daydreamers to flock online and over the border to purchase potentially life-changing tickets.

Mo Ahmed, manager at an Express Mart in Niagara Falls, N.Y., said there's been a huge influx in Canadians purchasing tickets at his store since Saturday.

“Even people that don't usually play are playing,” he said.

On Sunday, one Canadian customer purchased $2,000 worth of tickets from him, and another spent $1,200 the day before. “Everybody's going crazy,” he said.

Though he doesn't normally play himself, Ahmed said this surge is making him change his mind.

“These Canadians are motivating me,” he said.

Perhaps their legwork will pay off. John Pothier, a plumber from Surrey, B.C., told the Star he will be making the 20-minute drive to Washington on Tuesday night to buy tickets for his 14-member lottery pool.

“Lots of people are making that drive,” he said Sunday. “I'm not the only one.” If he hits it big, he said he wants to “run and hide.”

Frida Dunn, a mother from Acton, Ont., buys her Powerball tickets when she's in Buffalo, N.Y., for her son's soccer tournaments, and if she hits it big, she says that like Pothier, she's looking to get away from it all.

The winning numbers — disclosed live on television and online Saturday night — were 16-19-32-34-57 and the Powerball No. 13. All six numbers must be correct to win, although the first five can be drawn in any order. The odds to win the largest lottery prize in U.S. history were one in 292.2 million.

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Officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball game, said they expected about 75 per cent of the possible number combinations would have been bought for Saturday night's drawing.

The website, which sells tickets for lotteries around the world, has a disclaimer posted on Sunday evening stating the service is temporarily unavailable due to “high demand for the U.S. Powerball.” (Washington state lottery officials told CTV News that what online lottery-ticket resellers are doing is actually illegal, both in Washington state and federally.)

The U.S. had sales of $277 million on Friday alone and more than $400 million were expected Saturday, according to Gary Grief, the executive director of the Texas Lottery.

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