On Wednesday night, America’s lottery players competed for the fifth 10-digit jackpot in U.S. history — a Powerball drawing worth $1.2 billion.
The winning numbers were 2-11-22-35-60, with the Powerball being 23.
The $1.2 billion prize, if won, would be the fourth-largest in U.S. lottery history and comes slightly over three months since the third-biggest — a $1.337 billion ticket sold in the July 29 Mega Millions contest.
If taken in a single lump sum of cash, as most recent big lottery winners have chosen to do, Wednesday’s $1.2 billion Powerball prize would be worth $596.7 million. The larger, advertised amount is what the other option — a 29-year annuity — would be worth over its lifetime.
Federal taxes would quickly take almost 40% of that amount, with state taxes a possibility on top of that.
If Wednesday’s drawing did not produce a winner, Saturday’s contest is expected to push $1.6 billion and could be the biggest in U.S. history.
“I think it would be close to being a record if not a record,” Drew Svitko, the Pennsylvania Lottery’s executive director, told the Associated Press. “The record of $1.586 billion that we had back in 2016 is within reach, but it really depends on a couple factors.”
The greatest such factor is the number of tickets sold, which spikes as eyepopping “billion-with-a-b” numbers encourage sales among both regular and casual players.
The last Powerball winner came on Aug. 3, 38 drawings ago, and recent changes such as expanding to three drawings a week have encouraged, in Powerball’s words, “larger, faster-growing jackpots.”
The $2 Powerball tickets are sold in 45 states, along with the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The odds of a winning Powerball ticket are 1 in 292.2 million.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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