Powerball drawing for $1.25 billion jackpot nears

Will this be the drawing that ends the record drought without a Powerball jackpot winner?

The winning numbers for the Powerball jackpot worth an estimated $1.25 billion will be drawn on Wednesday. The drawing takes place at 10:59 p.m. ET and can be streamed live on Powerball.com.

This will be the 44th drawing since the last jackpot win on Sept. 6, marking the most drawings in a single jackpot cycle since the lottery game began in 1992. The previous record-long jackpot run was 42 drawings.

The odds of hitting the jackpot are a minuscule 1 in 292.2 million.

The current jackpot ranks as the sixth-largest in Powerball history. It’s just the seventh jackpot to ever reach the $1 billion mark and the second to do so this year. The most recent jackpot win in September saw tickets in Missouri and Texas share a $1.787 billion grand prize, the second-largest in Powerball history.

If a ticket matches all five white balls plus the red Power Ball drawn on Wednesday, the winner would be faced with two options. They could either claim the $1.25 billion grand prize which is paid out through an annuity, with annual payments over 30 years. Or they could receive a one-time, lump-sum payment of an estimated $572.1 million.

But, regardless of which option a winner chooses, they wouldn’t take home the full prize amount. That’s because the winnings are subject to federal taxes and, in most jurisdictions, state taxes as well.

Attorney Andrew Stoltmann says some of the most vicious legal fights over the lottery come from office lotto pools gone wrong. Here’s what you need to know before you buy in.

Powerball is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There are three drawings per week — Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays — and tickets cost $2 each. Adding the Power Play option, which can multiply winnings by two, three, four, five or 10 times, to a ticket costs an extra $1.

The largest Powerball jackpot ever awarded was in 2022 when a ticket in California won a $2.04 billion grand prize.

Attorney Andrew Stoltmann has represented 12 lottery winners, many of whom lost all their winnings through bad investments, reckless spending and greedy relatives. “Unfortunately, the people who win the lottery think at that point, the journey is over. And what they don’t realize is that the journey has really just begun,” says the Chicago-based Stoltmann.