Powerball jackpot reaches $850 million for Wednesday drawing

The Powerball jackpot climbed to an estimated $850 million forward of Wednesday evening’s drawing, reaching the sixth highest prize within the recreation’s historical past.

The drawing Wednesday is the thirty eighth because the final Powerball jackpot was received in Could by a California ticket. If a participant wins after the drawing, they might obtain an estimated $850 million break up over 30 years or one lump sum cost of about $384 million money worth, each earlier than taxes.

The jackpot broke into the highest ten greatest within the video games historical past in the previous few drawings. The very best-ever profitable Powerball jackpot occurred in November 2022 at $2.04 billion received in California, and the following highest got here in at $1.765 billion in October 2023 additionally received in California.

The prize will cross into the fifth largest within the video games historical past if no winner comes ahead Wednesday and the jackpot grows over $1.08 billion.

Powerball Product Group Chair Matt Strawn mentioned Wednesday the rising jackpot has spiked purchases, with gross sales “doubled in the past week.”

The surging jackpot follows a sharp dip in Powerball and Mega Hundreds of thousands gross sales in fiscal 12 months 2025, which Mass Lottery officers attributed to the dimensions of jackpots within the 12 months. In comparison with the primary 11 months of fiscal 12 months 2024, gross sales for Powerball have been down 58.5% and Mega Hundreds of thousands have been down 26.9% in FY 2025.

In FY 2024, there have been 5 jackpots that reached a billion or larger, whereas in just one in the identical interval of FY 2025, the Mass Lottery government mentioned. In December 2024, the Mega Hundreds of thousands jackpot was the final to surpass $1 billion, making a dozen complete lottery prizes to achieve the benchmark.