A comfort retailer worker grabs a Powerball lottery ticket for a buyer on Monday, Dec. 22, 2025, in Portland, Ore.
Jenny Kane/AP
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Jenny Kane/AP
A Christmas Eve Powerball drawing may add new which means to vacation cheer as tens of millions of gamers hope to money in on the $1.7 billion prize, which comes after months with no jackpot winner.
The USA’ 4th-largest jackpot on report comes after 46 consecutive attracts with out somebody claiming to have all six numbers. The final contest with a jackpot winner was on Sept. 6. The sport’s lengthy odds have folks decking the halls and doling out $2 — and generally extra — for tickets forward of Wednesday evening’s reside drawing.
It is a signal the sport is working as meant. Lottery officers made the percentages harder in 2015 as a mechanism for snowballing jackpots, all of the whereas making it simpler to win smaller prizes.
The Christmas vacation just isn’t anticipated to affect the drawing course of ought to there be a successful ticket, a Powerball spokesperson stated.
Here’s what to learn about Wednesday’s drawing:
Christmas Eve cha-ching
That ticket positioned in a stocking or below the tree could possibly be value a billion bucks — however with some caveats.
Powerball is performed in 45 states, together with Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Most of these areas require gamers to be 18 or older, although some states have steeper necessities. In Nebraska, gamers should be at the least 19 years previous, and in Louisiana and Arizona, folks cannot purchase tickets till they’re 21.
Profitable tickets additionally should be cashed within the states the place they have been purchased. And gamers cannot purchase tickets in Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada or Utah.
Apart from that, lottery officers argue there’s a likelihood a fortunate Powerball ticket could possibly be a present that retains on giving.
Charlie McIntyre, the New Hampshire Lottery’s govt director, stated Tuesday: “Simply consider the tales you may inform for generations to come back concerning the 12 months you awoke a billionaire on Christmas.”
A spread of prizes will be presents
Wednesday’s $1.7 billion jackpot has a money worth of $781.3 million.
A winner can select to be paid the entire quantity via an annuity, with an instantaneous fee after which annual funds over 29 years that enhance by 5% every time. Most winners, nevertheless, normally select the money worth for a lump sum.
The chances are excessive for the highest prize, however there are smaller prizes gamers can reap.
On the final drawing, gamers in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin every gained $1 million. There are additionally prizes outdoors the jackpot, starting from just a few {dollars} to $2 million.
One lady instructed Powerball officers that she already made plans for her $1 million win: “We will repay our vehicles and bank cards and get a much bigger home!”
And Thomas Anderson of Burlington, North Carolina, stated he meant to make use of his $100,000 Powerball win from earlier this month to return to highschool, in response to Powerball.
Lengthy odds for the billion-dollar jackpots
Lottery officers set the percentages at 1 in 292.2 million in hopes that jackpots will roll over with every of the three weekly drawings till the pool balloons a lot that extra folks take discover and play.
The chances was once notably higher, at 1 in 175 million. However the sport was made harder in 2015 to create the out-of-this-world bounties. The harder odds partly helped set the stage for back-to-back record-breaking sweepstakes this 12 months.
The final time somebody gained the Powerball pot was on Sept. 6, when gamers in Missouri and Texas gained $1.787 billion, which was the second-highest high prize in U.S. historical past.
The U.S. has seen greater than a dozen lottery jackpot prizes exceed $1 billion since 2016. The most important U.S. jackpot ever was $2.04 billion again in 2022.
Extra about these unfavorable odds
It is exhausting to clarify what odds of 1 in 292.2 million imply. Even when halved, they continue to be tough to digest.
Prior to now, one math professor described the percentages of flipping a coin and getting heads 28 straight occasions.
Tim Chartier, a Davidson School math professor in North Carolina, on Monday in contrast the percentages of a successful lottery ticket to choosing one marked greenback invoice from a stack 19 miles (31 kilometers) excessive.
“It is true that in the event you purchase 100 tickets, you’re 100 occasions extra prone to win. However on this case, ‘100 occasions extra seemingly’ barely strikes the likelihood needle,” Chartier stated. “Utilizing the time analogy, shopping for 100 tickets is like getting 100 guesses to call that one chosen second over 9 years. Attainable — however wildly inconceivable.”
