COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – For the 36th time in nearly three months, the Powerball lottery will try to make someone rich.
With no winning ticket sold in Monday’s drawing, Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot has reached an estimated $1.73 billion (or a one-time cash payout of $756.6 million). It is now the second-highest jackpot in the game’s 41-year-plus history as well as the second-largest jackpot in U.S. history.
Wednesday’s winning numbers are 22, 24, 40, 52, and 64 and the Powerball is 10. The Power Play multiplier is 2x.
The last time the jackpot was anywhere close also happens to be the last time the jackpot was won: $1.08 billion on July 19.
Winners of the jackpot can choose either a one-time payment or to be paid out in 30 annual payments over a 29-year period for the full amount (each payment increases by 5% annually). Both prize amounts are before taxes.
In nearly all cases, state lotteries immediately take 24% of the prize for federal taxes (Monday’s jackpot prize would have resulted in $415.2 million being withheld); there is also the possibility of additional taxes due when filing federal returns. In Ohio, any lottery prize more than $600 is taxed at 4% ($69.2 million for the full jackpot).
If the winner selects the one-time payout (as most do, according to Powerball), more than $181,584,000 would be withheld in federal taxes and more than $30,264,000 in Ohio taxes, making the payout worth an estimated $544,752,000.
The top 10 Powerball jackpots in the game’s history are:
- $2.04 billion – Nov. 7, 2022
- $1.73 billion (est.) – Oct. 11, 2023
- $1.586 billion – Jan. 13, 2016
- $1.08 billion – July 19, 2023
- $768.4 million – March 27, 2019
- $758.7 million – Aug. 23, 2017
- $754.6 million – Feb. 6, 2023
- $731.1 million – Jan. 20, 2021
- $699.8 million – Oct. 4, 2021
- $687.8 million – Oct. 27, 2018
Of those top 10 jackpots, none have been won in Ohio. The last jackpot won in Ohio was on April 16 by the Crazy Luck Trust Ohio for an annuity of $252,600,000 or a one-time payment of $134,669,327.27, according to the Powerball website.
Players select five white-ball numbers between 1 and 69 and then one red Powerball number between 1 and 26.
Monday’s drawing saw one ticket win $2 million by matching the five white balls and the Power Play multiplier, while four tickets won $1 million by matching the five white numbers. Seventeen tickets won $150,000 and 101 tickets won $50,000. In total, more than 3.7 million tickets won prizes of at least $4.
Powerball is played in 45 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tickets cost $2 each with an optional $1 Power Play multiplier option which applies to all prizes except the jackpot. In most areas, the sale of tickets ends anywhere from one to two hours before the 10:59 p.m. EST drawing.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338 while the odds of winning any amount are 1 in 24.87. The odds remain constant because they are based on the possibility of matching the drawn combination of numbers, not on the number of tickets sold.
