
The Powerball jackpot drawing on Wednesday has crossed the $1 billion mark.
The jackpot, which reached the sum after no one won in Monday’s drawing, is the eighth-largest Powerball prize of all time. This is the 15th time a $1 billion prize level has been reached in U.S. lottery history.
The cash value for a lump sum payment is $433.1 million. Both the $1 billion over 30 annuity payments and the lump sum total are before taxes.
This is the biggest jackpot of 2026, as well. The last winner of a billion-dollar jackpot was in December last year, when a single ticket in Arkansas won $1.82 billion, the second-largest jackpot in lotto history.

Wednesday’s drawing will be the 44th since a Powerball jackpot was won on May 2, when tickets purchased in Florida and Texas split a $20 million prize.
“The growth of this jackpot reflects an extraordinary level of player interest,” Stephen Durrell, Powerball Product Group chair and Kansas Lottery executive director, said in a statement. “Ticket sales for [Monday] night’s drawing exceeded expectations and increased more than 86% compared to the previous Monday drawing. We’re also continuing to see strong participation from both new players in the United Kingdom and millions of Americans who join in as the jackpot reaches the $1 billion mark.”
This drawing will be the first to possibly have a winner from the U.K., which began selling tickets in late July. The game can be played in 45 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C.
While there were no big winners in Monday’s drawing, someone in Tennessee won $2 million, and there were $1 million winners in California and Maryland. Fourteen people won $150,000.
Your chances of winning the big jackpot are just 1 in 292.2 million. The drawing is at 10:59 p.m. ET.




