Key Background
This is the biggest lottery prize of the year so far, pipping an $800 million Mega Millions jackpot that was won by a Florida ticket buyer last Tuesday. Among Powerball jackpots 2026’s biggest one prior to this was a $250.8 million prize won by a lottery player from Arkansas.
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Big Number
1-in-292.2 million. Those are the abysmal odds the Illinois ticket buyer had to overcome to win the Powerball jackpot on Wednesday night. This is even worse than the Mega Millions lottery’s already poor odds of 1-in-290.4 million.
Tangent
Last month, the Powerball Jackpot was expanded to include players from the U.K. for the first time, which officials have said will lead to “faster-growing jackpots,” with the additional ticket sales adding to the prize pool. In the event a U.K. player had emerged as the winner of the jackpot, they would have only had the option of receiving the prize spread across 30 annual installments. The jackpot prize advertised by the U.K. National Lottery before Wednesday night’s draw was around £503 million ($679.5 million). While it appears lower than the $1 billion advertised U.S. prize, officials in the U.K. note this reflected the estimated amount a winner would receive over a 30-year period, “after exchange rates and UK tax requirements have been taken into account.”
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further reading
Mega Millions Ticket Buyer From Florida Wins $800 Million—Here’s What They Could Take Home (Forbes)
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