Now the 8th-largest jackpot in Powerball history

By Todd Northrop

For the first time ever, a billion-dollar American lottery jackpot is up for grabs on both sides of the Atlantic.

Wednesday night's Powerball drawing features an estimated $1 billion annuity jackpot with a lump-sum cash option of $433.1 million. And thanks to the game's expansion into the United Kingdom last month, there are more people than ever buying tickets.

The Powerball jackpot has been building for 43 consecutive drawings since the last winner on May 2, 2026, when two tickets sold in Florida and Texas split a $20 million jackpot — the game's minimum starting prize.

Monday night when there were no Powerball jackpot winners, the new jackpot for Wednesday's drawing was initially estimated at $975 million. Brisk Tuesday sales prompted game officials to raise it again — this time to a flat $1 billion.

The Wednesday jackpot is the 8th-largest lottery jackpot in Powerball history, the 15th-largest ever offered in the United States, and the 22nd-largest cash option ever offered. (See complete top-25 jackpot rankings for annuity and cash values below.)

Of course, any big winner (or winners) of Wednesday's Powerball jackpot will have to pay taxes on their prize, so the website USA Mega has a handy Powerball Jackpot Analysis page available to calculate the federal and state taxes that would be withheld upon payout. The feature calculates both the initial withholdings and the final tax burden due at the end of the year, and even can show taxes calculated for different IRS filing statuses.

Stephen Durrell, Powerball Product Group chair and Kansas Lottery executive director, said the run reflects "an extraordinary level of player interest." According to Durrell, ticket sales for Monday's drawing beat expectations and ran more than 86% ahead of the previous Monday's drawing, with strong participation from both the new British player base and the millions of Americans who typically jump in once a jackpot nears the billion-dollar threshold.

This is the eighth time in Powerball history that the advertised jackpot has reached $1 billion, and the 15th time any American lottery jackpot has hit that mark. It is the first to get there with a lottery outside the United States paying into the pool.

Powerball tickets went on sale in the United Kingdom on July 21, with UK players joining their first drawing on July 22 — the first time in the game's 34-year history that a non-U.S. lottery has contributed to the Powerball jackpot. With The UK National Lottery aboard, 49 lotteries now participate and fund the jackpot. The British game is not a carbon copy, however: UK players pay £4 per line instead of $2, the jackpot there is advertised as an after-tax figure and paid only as a 30-year annuity with no cash option, and the lower-tier prize structure differs, including a "match 2" tier worth £8 that does not exist in the American game. Power Play and Double Play are not available in the UK. The odds of hitting the jackpot are identical on both sides of the ocean: 1 in 292,201,338.

The largest lottery jackpot ever awarded was on Nov. 7, 2022, when one Powerball ticket sold in California won a $2 billion grand prize. The incredibly lucky winner was Edwin Castro, who claimed the prize in February of 2023, providing minimal public information about himself. What little is known about Castro comes from public filings, and includes the purchases of houses one, two, and three, as well as being the subject of dubious lawsuits that are unfortunately predictable these days. (The lawsuit was thrown out in 2024.) One of those houses was destroyed in the 2025 Palisades fire, and Castro was later active in purchasing lots destroyed by the fire.

The second-largest jackpot in history was awarded much more recently. On Dec. 24, 2025, a single ticket sold at a Murphy USA in Cabot, Arkansas won a $1.817 billion Christmas Eve jackpot, and the winner took the $834.9 million cash option in January. The winner claimed the prize anonymously, but was later revealed to be Tracy Hartwick, the younger brother of North Little Rock mayor Terry Hartwick — Arkansas law carves out an exception to winner anonymity for elected officials and their close relatives.

Players looking for a nearby lottery retailer — or that out-of-the-way retailer with a smaller line — are encouraged to use Lottery Places, the only app for iOS and Android that can locate the nearest lottery retailers in every jurisdiction that sells Powerball and Mega Millions. The helpful app can locate lottery stores in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, much of Canada, and the Caribbean.

Some states offer direct online sales, allowing players to bypass the store and purchase tickets from home. Players can see if they can play Powerball online by tapping the link. Depending on the physical location of the person, the link will either provide access via a licensed butler service or the official state lottery itself.

Butler services provide scanned copies of the purchased lottery tickets securely held on behalf of the customer. In the past, such lottery ticket services were used by people outside the USA to win big jackpots in Oregon and Florida.

The winning numbers for Monday, August 10, 2026 were 6, 37, 54, 55, and 64, with Powerball number 10. The Power Play number was 3.

The Monday Double Play drawing results were 4, 23, 31, 32, and 57, with Powerball number 23. Double Play is a game option currently available in 28 states, plus Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, that lets you play your numbers in a second drawing for $1 per play, with a chance to win up to $10 million in cash. See How to Play Powerball at USA Mega for more information about Double Play.

Even though nobody won the jackpot Monday, 3 lucky players matched the first 5 numbers for a $1,000,000 prize: 1 from California, 1 from Maryland, and 1 from Tennessee.

The Tennessee ticket was purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1 per play, which doubled the prize to $2 million. The California ticket was actually worth more than the advertised second prize — $1,478,686 — because California awards all prizes on a pari-mutuel basis.

When a Powerball ticket is purchased with the Power Play option for an extra $1 per ticket, a second-prize win is doubled and any other non-jackpot prize is multiplied by the Power Play number drawn that evening. Note that the 10X multiplier is available only when the advertised jackpot is $150 million or less, so the multipliers in play for Wednesday's drawing are 2X, 3X, 4X, and 5X. A complete list of prizes available for matching various numbers can be found on the Powerball Drawing Detail page at USA Mega, as well as on the Powerball Prize Payouts and the Powerball Double Play Prize Payouts pages at Lottery Post.

The official drawing videos can also be found on the Powerball Drawing Detail page at USA Mega.

Power Play is not available in California, because the fixed nature of the prize increase offered in Power Play is not compatible with California's pari-mutuel payouts. By law, California awards all prizes on a pari-mutuel basis, meaning the prizes will change each drawing based on the number of tickets sold and the number of tickets that won at each prize level.

Also in the Monday drawing, 44 tickets matched four white numbers plus the Powerball and won $50,000. Of those tickets, 14 were purchased with the Power Play option, increasing the prize to $150,000, and 6 of the tickets were sold in California, where the prize was worth $19,672 this drawing.

In the Double Play drawing, nobody matched all six numbers for the $10 million top prize, but 2 tickets matched the first five numbers for $500,000 each, and 2 tickets matched four numbers plus the Powerball for $50,000 each.

British players had a quieter night in their third week of play. No UK ticket matched five numbers or better in Monday's drawing, but 67,784 UK tickets won prizes across the lower tiers, totaling £925,966.90.

Following the Monday drawing, the Powerball annuity jackpot estimate was raised $70.9 million from its previous amount of $929.1 million, and the cash value was raised by $30.7 million from its previous amount of $402.4 million.

The next Powerball drawing will take place Wednesday night at 10:59 pm Eastern Time.

Powerball is played in 45 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the United Kingdom. Drawings are Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Tickets cost $2 each in the United States and £4 per line in the UK.

Powerball lottery results are published within minutes of the drawing at USA Mega (www.usamega.com). The USA Mega Web site provides lottery players in-depth information about the United States's two biggest multi-state lottery games, Mega Millions and Powerball.

Top 25 United States lottery jackpots of all time

Wednesday's Powerball jackpot currently stands as the 15th-largest lottery jackpot of all time. Brisk sales may push the jackpot estimate higher by draw time.

1. Powerball: $2.0401 billion, Nov. 7, 2022 (40 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - California
2. Powerball: $1.8168 billion, Dec. 24, 2025 (46 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Arkansas
3. Powerball: $1.7874 billion, Sep. 6, 2025 (41 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Missouri, Texas
4. Powerball: $1.7649 billion, Oct. 11, 2023 (35 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - California
5. Mega Millions: $1.602 billion, Aug. 8, 2023 (31 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Florida
6. Powerball: $1.5864 billion, Jan. 13, 2016 (19 rollovers, starting at $40 million) - California, Florida, Tennessee
7. Mega Millions: $1.537 billion, Oct. 23, 2018 (25 rollovers, starting at $40 million) - South Carolina
8. Mega Millions: $1.348 billion, Jan. 13, 2023 (25 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Maine
9. Mega Millions: $1.337 billion, Jul. 29, 2022 (29 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Illinois
10. Powerball: $1.3259 billion, Apr. 6, 2024 (40 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Oregon
11. Mega Millions: $1.269 billion, Dec. 27, 2024 (30 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - California
12. Mega Millions: $1.128 billion, Mar. 26, 2024 (30 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - New Jersey
13. Powerball: $1.0798 billion, Jul. 19, 2023 (38 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - California
14. Mega Millions: $1.05 billion, Jan. 22, 2021 (36 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Michigan
15. Powerball: $1 billion, Aug. 12, 2026 (43 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Preliminary estimate, not won yet
16. Mega Millions: $983 million, Nov. 14, 2025 (39 rollovers, starting at $50 million) - Georgia
17. Powerball: $842.4 million, Jan. 1, 2024 (34 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Michigan
18. Mega Millions: $800 million, Jul. 28, 2026 (37 rollovers, starting at $50 million) - Florida
19. Mega Millions: $800 million, Sep. 10, 2024 (27 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Texas
20. Powerball: $768.4 million, Mar. 27, 2019 (25 rollovers, starting at $40 million) - Wisconsin
21. Powerball: $758.7 million, Aug. 23, 2017 (20 rollovers, starting at $40 million) - Massachusetts
22. Powerball: $754.6 million, Feb. 6, 2023 (33 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Washington
23. Powerball: $731.1 million, Jan. 20, 2021 (35 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - Maryland
24. Powerball: $699.8 million, Oct. 4, 2021 (40 rollovers, starting at $20 million) - California
25. Powerball: $687.8 million, Oct. 27, 2018 (21 rollovers, starting at $40 million) - Iowa, New York

The number of jackpots in the top 25, by lottery game, are:

• Powerball: 15
• Mega Millions: 10

Top 25 cash value jackpots

Since many lottery winners collect their winnings in cash, the lump-sum payout is an important measure of what a winning ticket could be worth.

Looking at the cash value, the upcoming Powerball jackpot ranks as the 22nd-largest cash value in history.

1. Powerball: $997.6 million cash, Nov. 7, 2022 ($2.0401 billion annuity) - California
2. Powerball: $983.5 million cash, Jan. 13, 2016 ($1.5864 billion annuity) - California, Florida, Tennessee
3. Mega Millions: $877.8 million cash, Oct. 23, 2018 ($1.537 billion annuity) - South Carolina
4. Powerball: $834.9 million cash, Dec. 24, 2025 ($1.8168 billion annuity) - Arkansas
5. Powerball: $820.6 million cash, Sep. 6, 2025 ($1.7874 billion annuity) - Missouri, Texas
6. Mega Millions: $794.2 million cash, Aug. 8, 2023 ($1.602 billion annuity) - Florida
7. Mega Millions: $780.5 million cash, Jul. 29, 2022 ($1.337 billion annuity) - Illinois
8. Mega Millions: $776.6 million cash, Jan. 22, 2021 ($1.05 billion annuity) - Michigan
9. Powerball: $774.1 million cash, Oct. 11, 2023 ($1.7649 billion annuity) - California
10. Mega Millions: $723.5 million cash, Jan. 13, 2023 ($1.348 billion annuity) - Maine
11. Powerball: $621 million cash, Apr. 6, 2024 ($1.3259 billion annuity) - Oregon
12. Mega Millions: $571.9 million cash, Dec. 27, 2024 ($1.269 billion annuity) - California
13. Powerball: $558.1 million cash, Jul. 19, 2023 ($1.0798 billion annuity) - California
14. Powerball: $546.8 million cash, Jan. 20, 2021 ($731.1 million annuity) - Maryland
15. Mega Millions: $536.6 million cash, Mar. 26, 2024 ($1.128 billion annuity) - New Jersey
16. Powerball: $496 million cash, Oct. 4, 2021 ($699.8 million annuity) - California
17. Powerball: $480.5 million cash, Aug. 23, 2017 ($758.7 million annuity) - Massachusetts
18. Powerball: $477 million cash, Mar. 27, 2019 ($768.4 million annuity) - Wisconsin
19. Mega Millions: $471 million cash, Mar. 30, 2012 ($656 million annuity) - Illinois, Kansas, Maryland
20. Mega Millions: $453.6 million cash, Nov. 14, 2025 ($983 million annuity) - Georgia
21. Powerball: $450.2 million cash, Jan. 5, 2022 ($632.6 million annuity) - California, Wisconsin
22. Powerball: $433.1 million cash, Aug. 12, 2026 ($1 billion annuity) - Preliminary estimate, not won yet
23. Powerball: $425.2 million cash, Jan. 1, 2024 ($842.4 million annuity) - Michigan
24. Powerball: $407.2 million cash, Feb. 6, 2023 ($754.6 million annuity) - Washington
25. Mega Millions: $404.2 million cash, Sep. 10, 2024 ($800 million annuity) - Texas

The number of jackpot cash values in the top 25, by lottery game, are:

• Powerball: 15
• Mega Millions: 10