FORT MYERS, Fla.- Florida Lottery officials say 28% of the lottery revenue funds education in Florida.

John Cyr is the district sales manager for the Florida Lottery in Southwest Florida. He says 28% of ticket revenue goes to education, and the majority of the remaining 73% goes to prize payouts.

He says that fact can help people feel good about taking the risk. "We've generated over $25 billion for education. The money generated in the state of Florida retailers stays in the state of Florida."

Cyr says the monster $550 million powerball jackpot is driving more people to buy a ticket. "Since the last rollover, we've generated an unexpected revenue of 45 million dollars, it's huge."

He says, "people couldn't use a couple million dollars, but now all of a sudden when the jackpot is this big, oh I can use $550 million."

In 2010-2011, the Florida Lottery contributed about $8 million to Lee County for K-12 education. Collier County racked up about $4 million, and Charlotte County bout about $1.5 million.

But to put that in perspective, the Lee County School District says the money it received would only fund about a day and a half of district operations.