For four months, the jackpot of the popular lottery game in America, Powerball, evaded the players. After surviving on Wednesday, when the latest drawing of Powerball was, the jackpot is now estimated at $1.23 billion for the upcoming draw on Saturday. This mind-blowing sum makes him the fourth largest in the history of the game.
The $1.23 billion figure represents the total prize if a player agrees to annual installment payments. On the other hand, if anyone guesses correctly the winning numbers, they can also collect a lump cash sum, which in this case would be the staggering $595.1 million.
The estimated jackpot comes during one of Powerballβs longest-running streaks without a winner. The upcoming drawing, scheduled for Saturday, April 6, 2024, would mark the 41st draw for the game. Previously, only two other jackpot runs have reached 41 drawings before a jackpot winner was produced.
The last time a player hit the Powerball jackpot was on New Yearβs Day. At the time, a lucky lottery player from Michigan hit the whopping $842.4 million jackpot. Although $842.4 million is a hefty sum, the jackpot was the sixth largest from the popular lottery game.
In case the $1.23 billion jackpot survives on Saturday, there is a possibility for it to surpass the value of the third-largest grand prize from Powerball, $1.59 billion. The third-largest jackpot dropped back in 2016, while the second-largest was hit in October 2023, a staggering $1.77 billion. The largest jackpot prize from Powerball was won on November 7, 2022, when a player from California hit the unimaginable $2.04 billion.
More Lottery Players Show Interest in the Grand Prize
Drew Svitko, Powerballβs product group chair and executive director of the Pennsylvania Lottery, revealed that the growth of the grand prize from the game boosts the probability of a win by attracting more players. βWe expect to see more coverage of number combinations in Saturdayβs drawing as more players buy tickets, and a portion of every ticket sale will stay in-state to support public programs and services,β he added.
βAs the jackpot swells, so does the probability of someone winning.β
Drew Svitko, product group chair at Powerball
Undoubtedly, the interest in Powerball continues to climb with the increase of the jackpot. This is evident by data from the popular lottery, revealing that on Wednesday, nine players missed the jackpot by guessing correctly all five winning white balls. As a result, those players secured a second-tier $1 million prize each. There were two such winning tickets in California and Massachusetts, while Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington and South Carolina had a single winner each. Within the prizes from the lower tiers, some 64 tickets secured a $50,000 prize each, while 17 tickets won $150,000 prize each.