The fourth largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history — and the second largest Powerball jackpot — has people in a frenzy to make sure they've got tickets ahead of Wednesday night's drawing.
After 38 drawings without a grand prize winner, the Powerball jackpot has climbed to $1.2 billion. The cash option for the prize is estimated to be $596.7 million.
The last Powerball jackpot was hit on Aug. 3, which left one lucky player in Pennsylvania with a cool $206.9 million. That's enough to set you for life, but nowhere near some of the record-setting jackpots of the past few years.
Billion-dollar jackpots: a new phenomenon
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Each of the 10 biggest U.S. lottery jackpots has come since 2016. The record for biggest-ever jackpot was in 2016, for a Powerball prize of 1.586 billion that ended up being split by several winners.
Here's a ranking of the highest jackpots so far:
- $1.586 billion Powerball: 1/13/2016, California, Florida, Tennessee
- $1.537 billion Mega Millions: 10/23/2018, South Carolina
- $1.337 billion Mega Millions: 7/29/2022, Illinois
- $1.2 billion (est.) Powerball: 11/2/2022, TBD
- $1.05 billion Mega Millions: 1/22/2021, Michigan
- $768.4 million Powerball: 3/27/2019, Wisconsin
- $758.7 million Powerball: 8/23/2017, Massachusetts
- $731.1 million Powerball: 1/20/2021, Maryland
- $699.8 million Powerball: 10/04/2021, California
- $687.8 million Powerball: 10/27/2018, Iowa, New York
Why so many big jackpots?
Since the first jackpot hit $1 billion back in 2016, it's happened several more times, including in the latest game.
We asked the interim executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery, Mark William Bracken, why that may be.
"(There were) some matrix changes five and six years ago for both Powerball and Mega Millions," Bracken explained. "That kind of expanded the odds of hitting, so the odds got harder to hit the jackpot, but it greatly improved the odds of people winning lower tier prizes."
Matrix is a lottery term that is used to describe the configuration used to determine how many numbers are needed for certain payouts.
Mega Millions and Powerball, which are played in almost every state across the country, are similar lottery games and both began in the 1990s.
Powerball made changes to its matrix in 2015, and Mega Millions made changes to its matrix in 2017. Bracken said the changes in odds and prizes were likely introduced to spark even more interest amongst players.
"To some degree, [it] was probably intentional because, again, people love winning big chunks of money," Bracken said. "So you want to get to the higher jackpot. But you also want to see people hit it. You don't want it to go too long without hitting."
Bracken said the state sees gradually increasing interest as the jackpot rises.
"It's always on an incline, but you start to see it raising even more when you hit about the half a billion dollar mark," Bracken said. "When it hits the $600 million mark is when you start seeing it exponentially grow."
Powerball says its odds of winning any prize are 1 in 24.9, while the odds of winning a jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million. Mega Millions, meanwhile, says there is a 1 in 24 chance of winning any prize, and a 1 in 302.5 million chance of winning a jackpot.
Lucky stores in Massachusetts?
On Monday night's drawing, there were nine tickets sold in Massachusetts that won $50,000, according to the state lottery. Here's where the tickets were sold:
- New England Farms, Acushnet
- Stop & Shop, Andover
- Beverly Shop ‘N Go, Beverly
- Hampden Mini Mart, Hampden
- Jackansons, Marshfield
- Hatch’s Package Store, Nantucket
- Petro Plus, North Chelmsford
- Town Variety, Peabody
- Market Basket, Sagamore
Could we see a $2 billion jackpot?
Jackpots have surpassed the $1 billion mark several times now in the past few years. But is a $2 billion prize possible?
"I would love to see a $2 billion jackpot because I think that would be very exciting," Bracken said. "But if it doesn't hit over the next two draws, next Monday we may be looking at that."
Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C.; the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Drawings are held each Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m.
