(NEXSTAR) – The winning numbers are in for Saturday night’s $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot and it’s time to check your tickets.
If your ticket reads 61, 23, 62, 44, 11 and a Powerball of 17, you just got a whole lot richer.
This lottery jackpot became the second-largest in U.S. history Friday morning when the pot increased to $1.8 billion. The excitement was so high that the Powerball website crashed during the drawing on Saturday. The only time the jackpot was larger was in November 2022, when an exceptionally fortunate person in California won the $2.04 billion prize.
The lottery prize grows each time there are no exact matches, and Saturday night’s drawing followed 41 draws with no jackpot winner. It might take a few hours to confirm if someone – or several people – won big this time.
The amount a winner takes home depends on several factors. To begin with, if multiple people match the winning numbers, the grand prize will be divided among them. This occurred in 2016 when a $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot was split among three winning tickets: one in California, one in Tennessee, and one in Florida.
The next significant factor is whether you opt to receive the winnings in one lump-sum payout or over 30 installments. If you choose the former, the cash payout is an estimated $826.4 million this time around.
Finally, you’ll need to part with some of your prize in taxes. Everyone owes federal taxes to Uncle Sam, and most people also have to pay state taxes on their winnings. Residents of California, Delaware, Florida, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming are fortunate – they don’t have to pay state taxes on lottery prizes.
It probably goes without saying that you have to be very, very lucky to win the Powerball jackpot. Just how lucky? The odds are 1 in 292.2 million.
Even without a jackpot winner, there can be a prize winner ranging from as little as $4 to as much as $2 million. The odds of winning any prize at all are about 1 in 25.
