(NEXSTAR) — After a weekend drawing without a winner, the Powerball jackpot has surpassed $600 million ahead of Monday night’s drawing.
At an estimated $605 million, the current Powerball jackpot ranks as the largest of the year, surpassing a $515 million prize won by a ticket sold in California in March. It’s also now the largest jackpot since a $1.326 billion payout was secured by a ticket in Oregon in April 2024.
No matter how large the jackpot is, your odds of winning the grand prize remain the same: 1 in 292.2 million. You’re more likely to be attacked by a shark (1 in 3.7 million, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History) or struck by lightning (less than 1 in a million), or even both on the same day, than winning big.
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There are methods some lottery players swear by, like playing hot or cold numbers or a certain combination of numbers. However, every set of numbers has the same slim chance of winning. The same numbers could even be pulled two drawings in a row, said Rong Chen, professor and chair of the Department of Statistics in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick
There are other methods lottery players use to try to increase their chances of winning, like lottery wheeling — selecting a group of numbers and playing every combination or permutation of those numbers — or selecting numbers that have or haven’t been picked recently. Some also try the Delta Lotto System, which uses a bit of math to reduce the number of digits you’ll pick from, though many note it doesn’t take probability into account.
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, for example, would cut your odds to about 1 in 2.92 million instead of 1 in 292.2 million, Andrew Perry, a professor at Springfield College, explained to Nexstar’s WWLP.
To guarantee your victory, you would need to purchase exactly 292,201,338, all with different number combinations. Easy, right? Because each draw is $2, it’ll only set you back $584,402,676.
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.
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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.
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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.
