Justin Boggs
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LEARN MOREPosted: 6:46 a.m. EDT Oct 12, 2023
After a streak of 35 Powerball drawings without a winner, someone finally hit all six numbers in Wednesday's drawing worth $1.765 billion.
The numbers were white balls 22, 24, 40, 52, 64, and the red Powerball 10. The winning ticket was sold in California. An exact location was not released as of early Thursday morning.
This was the fourth time Powerball's jackpot topped $1 billion. In all four instances, a winning ticket was sold in California.
The odds of winning the jackpot are about 1 in 292 million. There have been four jackpot-winning Powerball tickets sold in 2023.
The Powerball jackpot has grown since a winning ticket was sold in July.
Powerball also has prizes ranging from $4 to $2 million, and the odds of winning a smaller prize are about 1 in 25. There were nearly 5.3 million winning tickets for smaller prizes on Wednesday. Among the smaller prizes, seven tickets on Wednesday hit all five white balls, which pays out at least $1 million.
Powerball is played in 45 states and Washington, D.C. Wednesday's jackpot was the largest Powerball has had this year. The previous largest winning ticket was sold in California on July 19. That jackpot was worth $1.08 billion.
Since Powerball lengthened the odds of hitting all six numbers in 2015, the multi-state lottery generally has six to nine winners a year. All 10 of its largest jackpots have also come since 2015. The largest Powerball jackpot in history was $2.04 billion, won on Nov. 7, 2022.
The $1.765 billion jackpot figure is based on the winner choosing the annuity option. If the winner takes the lump sum, that person would win $774.1 million. Both figures are before taxes.
