AUGUSTA (AP) – Lottery agents sold more than 500,000 tickets for the state’s first Powerball drawing, allowing Maine to surge past many other states when sales were viewed on a per capita basis.

Mainers spent $536,191 on tickets for the drawing between noon Friday, when tickets first went on sale in the state, and the drawing Saturday night, said Pam Coutts, executive director of the Maine Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations.

That response gave Maine the third-highest sales per capita for the drawing among the 27 states where Powerball tickets are sold, Coutts said. Total sales in Maine, including tickets bought for future drawings, were $570,779.

“Maine had a great first drawing, especially when you consider that Maine did not have the usual three days of sales between drawings,” said Joe Mahoney of the Multi-State Lottery Association, which oversees Powerball operations. “Obviously, the real test will be on Wednesday.”

Tonight’s drawing will have an estimated grand prize of $63 million or a lump sum payment of $33 million before taxes. Saturday’s drawing had a jackpot of around $54 million.

In a prepared statement, Mahoney said 428,713 players across the nation won a total of more than $3.4 million in prizes in Saturday’s game.

In Maine, nobody won a large prize of $5,000 or $100,000 on Saturday, but 32 players won $100 each; five of those paid an additional $1 per ticket for the “Power Play” option, which tripled their winnings.

Even with robust Powerball sales, the state did not experience a drop in ticket sales of Tri-State Megabucks, the longtime lottery game for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Lottery officials have projected a 17 percent drop in Megabucks sales over the next year.

“We didn’t take a dip in sales Saturday night, but we’ll just have to see how it goes going forward,” Coutts said.