Easy As 1-2-3: Powerball Jackpot Climbs To $1.23 Billion For Saturday’s Drawing

There were plenty of winners in Wednesday’s Powerball lottery drawing — 2,354,667 of them, to be exact.

But, for the 40th draw in row, there were no grand prize winners, increasing the estimated jackpot for the next drawing, on Saturday night, to $1.23 billion.

If someone wins on Saturday, it would be the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot ever claimed, and the eighth-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history.

Wednesday’s draw saw 11, 38, 41, 62, and 65 pulled, along with red Powerball 15, and a Power Play multiplier of 3x.

No player had a perfect match (for an estimated $1.13 billion jackpot), although nine customers — two in California, two in Massachusetts, and one apiece in Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, South Carolina, and Washington — won $1 million each for matching all five white balls.

Other prizes ranged from the 17 players who won $150,000 for matching four white balls and the red Powerball while opting into the Power Play, to more than 2 million tickets that returned $4 on a $2 investment.

For Saturday’s drawing, the cash value of the jackpot is estimated at $595.1 million.

How many tickets were Purchased for Wednesday?

Given that Powerball says the overall odds of winning a prize of some sort are 1 in 24.9, we can project that somewhere in the vicinity of 58.6 million tickets were sold for Wednesday’s drawing.

Chances are the number will be even higher for Saturday night.

“As the jackpot swells, so does the probability of someone winning,” Powerball Product Group Chair and Pennsylvania Lottery Executive Director Drew Svitko said via press release. “We expect to see more coverage of number combinations in Saturday’s drawing as more players buy tickets, and a portion of every ticket sale will stay in-state to support public programs and services.”

To clarify Svitko’s comment, the more tickets that are sold, the greater the chance that one of them wins the jackpot, but for any individual ticket, the odds remain 1 in 292.2 million.

The Powerball jackpot was last hit on Jan. 1, by a player in Michigan.

There’s no such hitless streak at the moment for Mega Millions, which reset to a $20 million top prize after a New Jersey customer snagged the estimated $1.13 billion jackpot on March 26. There have been two draws without a jackpot winner since, bringing the estimated prize for Friday’s draw to $67 million.

Tickets for both draw lotteries are sold in 45 states (all but Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah), the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

All-Time Biggest Jackpots

As noted above, if there’s a winner, Saturday’s $1.23 billion Powerball jackpot will be the eighth biggest in U.S. history. Here’s the current all-time top 10:

1. $2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 7, 2022, won in California
2. $1.76 billion, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023, won in California
3. $1.6 billion, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023, won in Florida
4. $1.59 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016, won in California, Florida, and Tennessee
5. $1.54 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018, won in South Carolina
6. $1.35 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023, won in Maine
7. $1.34 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022, won in Illinois
8. $1.13 billion, Mega Millions, March 26, 2024, won in New Jersey
9. $1.08 billion, Powerball, July 19, 2023, won in California
10. $1.05 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 22, 2021, won in Michigan

And here’s the all-time top 10 by lump-sum cash value:

1. $997.6 million, Powerball, Nov. 7, 2022, won in California
2. $983.5 million, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016, won in California, Florida, and Tennessee
3. $877.8 million, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018, won in South Carolina
4. $794.2 million, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023, won in Florida
5. $780.5 million, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022, won in Illinois
6. $776.6 million, Mega Millions, Jan. 22, 2021, won in Michigan
7. $774.1 million, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023, won in California
8. $723.5 million, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023, won in Maine
9. $558.1 million, Powerball, July 19, 2023, won in California
10. $546.8 million, Powerball, Jan. 20, 2021, won in Maryland