Lines began to grow across the river Thursday as Mississippi residents looking to strike it rich poured into Louisiana to buy tickets for Saturday’s $250 million Powerball drawing.

And if past drawings are any indication, the weekend will only be bigger, local store managers said.

&#8220Saturday’s going to be bonkers,” said Margaret Dennis, manager of The World lounge, just inside the Louisiana state line in the Village of Delta. She estimated a wait time as long as 45 minutes at times to buy Powerball tickets today and Saturday. &#8220My brother, the owner, will be out trying to direct traffic and to help people get out” of the parking lot.

The twice-weekly drawing covers 26 states and Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands, said Louisiana Lottery spokesman Kimberly Chopin. Saturday’s drawing will be the sixth-largest in Powerball’s nearly two-decade history, offering more than $250 million in annuity payments over years or a one-time, $120 million lump payment to a jackpot winner who can match all five numbers against odds of 1 in 146,107,962.

Smaller prizes – ranging from $3 for matching one ball to $200,000 for hitting four – are also awarded. Wednesday’s drawing failed to produce a jackpot winner from more than 1.3 million players nationwide, but gave out $11.5 million in other prizes. The last jackpot winner was a Des Moines, Iowa, man who won $113.2 million in the Dec. 14 drawing last year.

The longer the drawings continue without a winner, the larger the prize gets, the more attention the game draws and the more people want in, said Chopin.

&#8220Sales do typically go up as the jackpot goes up,” she said.

Aside from scratch-offs, the $91.4 billion that Powerball brought into Louisiana in 2005 topped income from the state’s six lottery games. A large portion of that income comes from across state lines.

&#8220Most of our customers come from the Jackson and Vicksburg areas,” said Dennis. &#8220We get people coming through; we’ve had them from as far away as Michigan.”

At the nearby Interstate Food Stop in Delta, the first stop for Mississippians entering Louisiana, lunch break lines formed Thursday at a counter set aside for lottery sales.

&#8220The reason I come is obvious: I want to win,” said Ronald Walter, a Vicksburg resident who’s been buying Powerball tickets twice a week in Louisiana for about a year and a half. He’s won once, he said, cashing in a ticket for $17.

Even that luck sounds good to Jackson resident Willie Evans, who said in 15 years of driving to buy Powerball tickets in Delta, he hasn’t picked a winner yet.

&#8220I’m hoping I’ll hit some luck someday,” Evans said. &#8220I keep trying to.”

That persistence is fine with Interstate Food Stop manager Hattie Vines, whose entire store benefits from the extra customers Powerball brings through its doors.

&#8220Our sales do increase whenever it’s up,” Vines said. &#8220It was pretty steady (Wednesday). Saturday’s when it’s going to be really busy.”