- The Powerball jackpot has reached $1.7 billion, making it the fourth-largest ever.
- Players face odds of one in 292 million to win the Powerball grand prize.
- Statistics show winning the Powerball is far less likely than rare events like lightning strikes.
The Powerball jackpot has reached $1.7 billion. You likely won't win.
Powerball is a multistate lottery in which players pay $2 to pick five numbers from 1 to 69 and a separate red Powerball from 1 to 26. Drawings are held twice a week, and the jackpot is won only by matching all six numbers. If no one wins, the prize rolls over and grows.
Not including a hefty sum of taxes, the winner can choose between a lump sum payment or an annuitized prize paid over 30 years.
The odds of winning the Grand Prize are about one in 292,201,338, per Powerball. An entrant would need to pull the exact right ticket — and that's if the winning ticket is even sold.
So, for all you lottery skeptics sitting this round out, here are some statistics to provide you solace.
Instead of winning the $1.7 billion, you would have better odds to:
- Be struck by lightning in 2026 (less than one in a million)
- Find a pearl in your Crassostrea oyster (one in 66)
- Find a four-leaf clover (one in 10,000)
- Be killed by a meteorite (one in 1.6 million)
- Be killed by a shark attack (one in 4 million)
- Die in a plane crash (one in 11 million)
- Be born on a Leap Day (one in 1,461)
- Have identical quadruplets (roughly one in 15 million births)
- See heads on 20 back-to-back coin flips (about one in a million)
- Pull the ace of spades four times in a row (one in 7.3 million)
Even if one does win the Powerball, there is no guarantee that their life will improve in the long run, depending on how they deal with their sudden and enormous wealth.
But for those lottery lovers out there, don't worry: You're probably more likely to win than a monkey is to type up "Hamlet."
