With the Powerball jackpot reaching $550 million, Butler County lottery outlets are filled with people hoping to cash in.

The jackpot is the second largest in Powerball history and third biggest overall. The next drawing is Saturday.

Joyce Merten of Saxonburg bought several scratch-off tickets Thursday afternoon at the Mars Planet Mart on Pittsburgh Street.

Merten said she had already snapped up her Powerball ticket, which she plays if the jackpot is at least $2 million. She has no grandiose dreams of extravagant expenditures in the event she wins on Saturday.

“I would help my kids,” Merten said of her three children and eight grandchildren. “I want to make their lives easy. I couldn’t care less about myself.”

Pressed regarding what she would do for herself, Merten said she would have a big party with catered food.

“Because I’m so used to doing all the work,” she said with a chuckle.

Abbey Bollinger, who works at the Co Gos gas station along Route 19 in Cranberry Township, said dozens of people came to the store Thursday to buy tickets, including herself.

“I’d pay off my house, pay off my car and put the rest into my kids’ educations,” she said. “I’d definitely help my family.”

Stephanie Claus, a freshman at Slippery Rock University, said that she knows of 10 friends and family members who have bought Powerball tickets because of the jackpot. She said that they normally do not buy lottery tickets.

“For (them), it’s a special occasion,” Claus said at SRU.

However, she said she is choosing not to buy a ticket.

Tommy Hageter of Butler Township bought a ticket at the Quik Fill on Route 8 in Center Township. He does not regularly buy tickets, but he does on occasions such as this.

“I’ve bought them before,” Hageter said.

But with the long odds of winning, he could not be described as particularly optimistic. However, he could not deny wanting to be the one to strike gold.

“I just hope I win,” Hageter said.

John Reiger of Pittsburgh was coming out of 7 Eleven in Zelienople Thursday after buying his tickets and getting his chance to win half a billion dollars.

“You have to take a shot at it, right?” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do with that kind of money. It’s hard to wrap your mind around it. It definitely would be a lifechanger.”

Lottery officials expect the jackpot to keep growing before Saturday’s drawing that could break Powerball’s November 2012 record of $587.5 million.

The latest kitty leaped nearly $200 million since Wednesday’s drawing, which was an estimated $360 million.

Lottery officials expect jackpots to continue growing faster and bigger, thanks in part to a game redesign in January 2012 that increased the odds of winning some kind of prize of a lesser amount. On Wednesday, $1 million prizes were won in 16 states, and $2 million prizes were won in two states.

More than half of the all-time jackpot records have been reached in the last three years. The top two all-time jackpots — $656 million from a Mega Millions jackpot and $587.5 million from a Powerball jackpot — were achieved in 2012.

Some states, like California, now sell tickets for both games.

Eagle staff writers John Bojarski, Paula Grubbs, Bob Schultz and Jared Stonesifer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.