It's been a wild year for the Powerball lottery. On November 8, Powerball announced that a single winning Powerball ticket, sold at a gas station in Altadena California, won the World Record $2.04 billion Powerball lottery jackpot. That means that some lucky ticket holder won the largest jackpot in Powerball history and the largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history. And then a couple of weeks later, on November 20, a Kansas ticket holder won a $92.9 million Powerball jackpot. But of course, due to taxes, those Powerball winners (who have yet to be revealed) will take home a lot less money than advertised.
The odds of winning the World Record Powerball jackpot were about one in 292.2 million. But lottery officials point out that the Powerball jackpot has been hit seven times so far in 2022. And since no one has hit the jackpot since November, the Powerball lottery payout is climbing again.
So, that always has a lot of people thinking about how much money a lucky multi-million-dollar Powerball jackpot winner will take home—after taxes.
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Powerball Winning Numbers: Did Anyone Win the Powerball Jackpot?
Winning the Powerball lottery jackpot requires a ticket holder to match six numbers from the Powerball drawing. Powerball drawing days are every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET. Tickets are $2 per play. Powerball tickets are sold in 45 states, and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
No ticket matched all six numbers drawn in last Wednesday’s drawing – the final Powerball drawing of 2021. However, Wednesday’s drawing produced one winning Match 5 ticket worth $1 million in Georgia.
The Powerball jackpot was last hit in California in the Oct. 4, 2021 drawing when a single ticket won a massive $699.8 million grand prize. That jackpot ranked as the 5th largest in Powerball history and the 7th largest in U.S. lottery history. Since then, there have been 37 drawings in a row without a jackpot winner.
In addition to the regularly scheduled Saturday drawing coinciding with New Year’s Day, Powerball will also hold a special $1 million drawing just after midnight EST on January 1 to cap off a national Powerball promotion called the POWERBALL First Millionaire of the Year®. The drawing will be broadcast live on “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2022” on ABC. The $1 million prize will be awarded to one of five finalists who entered the promotion through their local lottery.
It’s been a big year for Powerball. On August 23, 2021, Powerball launched a new Monday drawing, which expanded the weekly lineup of Powerball drawings to three nights a week: Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. In addition, a new add-on feature called Double Play® was launched that gives players in select jurisdictions another chance to match their Powerball numbers in a separate drawing with a top cash prize of $10 million.
Powerball tickets are $2 per play. Tickets are sold in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. More than half of all proceeds from the sale of a Powerball ticket remain in the jurisdiction where the ticket was sold. Powerball drawings are broadcast live every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET from the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee. Powerball drawings are also live streamed online at Powerball.com.
Jackpot winners may choose to receive their prize as an annuity, paid in 30 graduated payments over 29 years, or a lump sum payment. Both advertised prize options are prior to federal and jurisdictional taxes. The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 24.9. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million.
To date, Powerball holds the world record for largest jackpot set in 2016. The record $1.586 billion jackpot was shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee.