Powerball Jackpot Climbs to $856 Million, Now the Eighth-Largest in Game History
No winner in 41 straight drawings has pushed the prize toward the top of the all-time list, with the next chance to claim it coming Saturday night.
NEED TO KNOW
- The Powerball jackpot has grown to an estimated $856 million ahead of Saturday’s drawing, after 41 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner.
- That total now ranks as the eighth-largest jackpot in Powerball history, and the biggest since a $1.817 billion prize was claimed in Arkansas on Christmas Eve 2025.
- The last Powerball jackpot was actually won back on May 2, 2026, when two tickets sold in Florida and Texas split a $20 million prize.
Powerball players have a shot at one of the biggest jackpots the lottery game has ever offered. The prize now sits at an estimated $856 million heading into Saturday night’s drawing, after more than three months without a single ticket matching all six numbers.
The jackpot has been building since a $20 million prize was split between two ticket holders in Florida and Texas on May 2, 2026. Since then, 41 straight drawings have come and gone without a winner, allowing the pot to snowball into one of the richest in the game’s history.
At $856 million, the prize now ranks as the eighth-largest jackpot Powerball has ever produced. It’s also the largest since a ticket sold in Arkansas hit a staggering $1.817 billion jackpot on Christmas Eve 2025 a win that still stands as the second-biggest lottery prize ever awarded in the United States.
Wednesday night’s drawing came up empty, with numbers landing on 61, 60, 59, 14 and 20, and a Powerball number of 25. That miss set the stage for Saturday’s even bigger payout.
The odds, explained
Hitting the jackpot is famously difficult. Players have to match five white balls, drawn from a pool numbered 1 through 69, plus a red Powerball number drawn from 1 through 26. The odds of nailing every number and taking home the full jackpot sit at roughly 1 in 292.2 million a figure that now applies to players in the United Kingdom as well, after Powerball recently expanded its reach beyond U.S. borders. Lottery officials have said the larger international player pool should help jackpots climb even faster going forward, likely drawing in more ticket buyers chasing the bigger headline numbers.
Tickets remain a relatively low-cost gamble at $2 each. The game is currently offered in 45 U.S. states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with drawings held three times a week Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
For context on just how rare a prize this size really is, only a handful of jackpots in American lottery history have ever cracked the billion-dollar mark, let alone come close to it. A $2.040 billion Powerball jackpot claimed by a single California ticket in November 2022 still holds the record for the largest lottery win ever. It’s followed by a $1.787 billion Powerball prize split between Missouri and Texas in September 2025, and a $1.765 billion Powerball jackpot won in California back in October 2023. Mega Millions has produced its own share of giants too, including a $1.602 billion jackpot claimed in Florida in August 2023 and a $1.348 billion prize won in Maine in January 2023.
What makes Saturday’s drawing notable isn’t just the dollar figure it’s the pace. Jackpots of this size have historically taken longer stretches without a winner to build, but Powerball’s expanded international footprint appears to be accelerating how quickly these pots grow, a shift that could make billion-dollar jackpots a more frequent occurrence rather than a once-a-decade event.
For now, all eyes turn to Saturday night, when the next set of numbers will determine whether one lucky ticket or a handful split across states walks away with a life-changing $856 million. If no one matches all six numbers again, the jackpot will roll over once more, inching closer to the billion-dollar territory that only a small handful of drawings in history have ever reached.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
