(NEXSTAR) — After a weekend drawing without a winner, the Powerball jackpot has surpassed $600 million ahead of Monday night’s drawing.
The current Powerball jackpot, estimated at $605 million, is the largest of the year, exceeding a $515 million prize claimed by a ticket in California in March. It’s also the biggest jackpot since a $1.326 billion win by a ticket in Oregon in April 2024.
Regardless of the jackpot size, your odds of securing the grand prize remain constant: 1 in 292.2 million. Statistically, you have a greater chance of experiencing a shark attack (1 in 3.7 million, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History) or getting struck by lightning (less than 1 in a million) than hitting the jackpot.
Some lottery enthusiasts advocate strategies like choosing hot or cold numbers or specific combinations. However, every number set carries the same slim winning odds. It’s possible for identical numbers to be drawn in consecutive sessions, noted Rong Chen, chair of the Department of Statistics in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Lottery players often use other tactics to try to boost their winning chances, such as lottery wheeling—choosing a group of numbers and playing every possible combination—or picking numbers based on recent draws. The Delta Lotto System offers a mathematical way to narrow down digits, though it’s criticized for ignoring probability.
But, remember, every draw has an equal chance of winning the Powerball jackpot.
If you really want to guarantee your jackpot victory, there is a simple but expensive method to win big: buying more tickets.
Buying 100 tickets would adjust your odds to about 1 in 2.92 million instead of 1 in 292.2 million, as explained by Andrew Perry, a professor at Springfield College, to Nexstar’s WWLP.
To ensure a win, purchasing all 292,201,338 possible tickets with different combinations is necessary. Simple, right? Each draw costs $2, totaling $584,402,676 for complete coverage.
With a cash value of $273.4 million, you would still be out roughly $311 million if you won the jackpot by buying every single possible number combination — and that’s without accounting for the taxes your prize is subject to.
While the annuitized option is estimated at $605 million, you’d receive far less because of taxes as well, and the payments would be dispersed over the next 30 years. In no state, even those without a lottery tax, would the total annuitized payouts even reach $400 million, according to an analysis by USA Mega.
“However you play, there’s a high probability of losing all your money. I would advise people not to risk money that they can’t afford to lose,” Perry warned.
Luckily for you, there have been more than 200 Powerball jackpots won by players who have seemingly not bought 292.2 million tickets.
Even if you don’t hit the jackpot, you still have a decent chance of winning a prize. With nine ways to win, the odds of winning any prize while playing Powerball are 1 in 29. The smallest prize available is $4 — enough to buy two more Powerball tickets.
Powerball drawings are held every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET. The lottery game is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
