Californian claims $1.765 billion Powerball jackpot

A single lucky winning ticket in California matched all six numbers in Wednesday nights Powerball jackpot of $1.765 billion, a cash value of $774.1 million.

Wednesday night’s drawing is the second-largest jackpot in U.S. history after thirty-five consecutive drawings failed to produce a winner.

Powerball has previously seen some of its other grand prizes reach massive levels, including a $2.04 billion jackpot in 2022 and a $1.586 billion jackpot in 2016, among others. Cash prizes getting bigger in roughly the last 10 years has been driven by various factors, the Multi-State Lottery Association told FOX Business on Tuesday. 

Powerball tickets are seen on a counter after being purchased in a Miami store on Oct. 4, 2023. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images / Getty Images)

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The Multi-State Lottery Association said Powerball “has become ubiquitous with life-changing jackpots.” That has prompted people to buy more tickets in hopes of landing one themselves and, therefore, helped feed bigger grand prizes, according to the association. 

Someone last landed the Powerball jackpot nearly three dozen drawings ago. That windfall had an annuitized value of $1.08 billion for someone in California.

During the overall run for that grand prize, people across the country saw windfalls collectively worth $85.1 million from over 4.8 million tickets, the lottery said in July. 

A woman waits to check to see if she won the Mega Millions lottery at Foremost Liquor Store on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023, in South Pasadena, CA.  (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images / Getty Images)

More recently, on Monday, four $1 million prizes went to winners, and a $2 million prize went to another person who did Power Play.

“As jurisdictions approve lottery legislation, additional population is added to the Powerball eco-system, increasing sales and driving larger jackpot amounts,” the Multi-State Lottery Association also told FOX Business. 

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Additionally, the larger jackpots have stemmed in part from Powerball officials making changes to the lottery, according to the association.

That included the Powerball ticket price per play getting upped to $2. That went into effect in 2012. 

Another tweak that helped fuel super-sized jackpots was the lottery rolling out an updated matrix in 2015, per the Multi-State Lottery Association.

A person is seen playing the Powerball lottery at a 7-Eleven store in Milpitas, California, on Nov. 7, 2022. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The matrix became 5/69 + 1/26, with the former for the white balls and the latter for the red balls, according to the Powerball website. New odds of winning prizes also accompanied the updated matrix.

Currently, people have a 1 in about 292.2 million chance of scoring the Powerball grand prize. For a win in general, the odds are 1 in 24.87, according to the lottery.

The lottery also started conducting a third weekly drawing on Monday. It did so beginning in 2021 in a move Powerball said at the time would lead to “larger, faster-growing jackpots” and an “increase in the number of cash prizes and jackpots awarded on an annual basis.”

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Powerball is scheduled to conduct its latest drawing Wednesday evening. 

Lottery players will have a chance to score the jackpot, currently at $1.73 billion on a pre-tax annuitized basis, when that happens. As a one-time payout, it has a value of $756.6 million.

Powerball dubbed it the “second-largest Powerball jackpot and U.S. lottery jackpot.”

USAMega.com pegged the lump sum after federal taxes that a potential winner of the grand prize at that size would get at nearly $476.7 million, not factoring in any state taxes that could be applied. 

The current jackpot first rose above the billion-dollar level over a week ago.

A woman holds Powerball lottery tickets inside a store in Homestead, Florida, on July 19, 2023. (GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

Powerball saw over $6 billion worth of national base game sales in fiscal 2022, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. 

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Game sales from Oct. 1-7 apparently saw a massive spike compared to the prior week. They soared 89.9% week-over-week, the association reported.

Suzanne O’Halloran contributed to this report.