JOHNSTON, Iowa – The Powerball® jackpot continues to climb ahead of tonight’s drawing. Game leaders increased the jackpot estimate this morning from $670 million to $685 million ($485.5 million cash value). The jackpot ranks as the 8th largest in U.S. lottery history and the 6th largest for the Powerball game.
“We had robust ticket sales through the weekend, and traditionally, we tend to see the majority of ticket purchases happen the day of a drawing,” said May Scheve Reardon, Powerball Product Group Chair and Missouri Lottery Executive Director. “Playing for a jackpot of this size is an exciting way to start the week. Please remember, it only takes one ticket to win.”
In August, Powerball began offering a third weekly drawing on Monday nights in addition to drawings on Wednesday and Saturday. A new add-on feature called Double Play® was also launched in 13 U.S. lottery jurisdictions. Powerball tickets that include Double Play for an additional $1 per play are eligible to win prizes in both the Powerball drawing and a separate Double Play drawing. Instead of a rolling jackpot, Double Play offers a $10 million top cash prize.
Game leaders are reminding players to check their tickets for one of the nine ways to win. In Saturday’s drawing alone, more than 2.8 million tickets won prizes ranging from $4 to $1 million. Some of the big winners include a ticket in Massachusetts that matched all five white balls to win $1 million. There were also 66 tickets that matched four white balls and the Powerball to win $50,000. Eleven other tickets doubled the $50,000 prize to $100,000 by including the Power Play® option for an additional $1 per play.
The winning numbers in the Saturday, Oct. 2 drawing were white balls 28, 38, 42, 47, 52 and the Powerball number was 1.
The Powerball jackpot was last hit in the June 5, 2021 drawing when a ticket worth $285.6 million was sold in Florida. Since then, there have been 40 drawings in a row without a Grand Prize winner – a new game record for the number of consecutive drawings without a jackpot win.
Powerball tickets are $2 per play. Tickets are sold in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. More than half of all proceeds from the sale of a Powerball ticket remain in the jurisdiction where the ticket was sold. Powerball drawings are broadcast live every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET from the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee. Powerball and Double Play drawings are also live streamed online atPowerball.com.
To date, Powerball holds the world record for largest jackpot set in 2016. The record $1.586 billion jackpot was shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee. Jackpot winners may choose to receive their prize as an annuity, paid in 30 graduated payments over 29 years, or a lump sum payment. Both advertised prize options are prior to federal and jurisdictional taxes. The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 24.9. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.