Be suspicious about a text or email saying you’re a Powerball winner -- it’s likely a scam

If you receive an email or text telling you that you’re the winner of the $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot, a game in which the odds of doing so are 1 in 292 million, you’ve probably been targeted for a scam.

“The Ohio Lottery will never contact you and tell you that you won a jackpot prize. We don’t even know who has purchased that winning ticket until they come into our office and claim,” Danielle Frizz-Babb, communications director, Ohio Lottery, told News Center 7′s Haley Kosik.

The Ohio Lottery offers ways to outsmart scammers.

One red warning flag is that the lottery will never tell you that you’ve won.

Another red warning flag should be raised when the scammer asks you for personal information.

“All of us receive things that are either in the mail, in our email, phone calls, text messages you name it,” Frizz-Babb said. “Everyone’s receiving this kind of stuff and it is not the real deal.”

A third red flag should go up if you choose to buy lottery tickets through an app.

“We are not affiliated with any apps,” she said. “You cannot purchase Ohio Lottery games online through an app through us.”

The next drawing for the Powerball jackpot is 10:59 p.m. Saturday.