The ninth-largest lottery jackpot will be on the line Monday night when numbers are drawn for a $785 million Powerball prize.
The payout has grown so large because it has been building for more than two months, since a player in California matched all six numbers on July 19 and won $1.08 billion. That’s 28 consecutive drawings without a big winner.
That winless streak is due to the miserable odds of winning the Powerball jackpot, at 1 in 292.2 million. It’s those long, long odds that result in such large top prizes, as they cause the jackpot to roll over week after week.
The jackpot is the ninth-largest in the world, behind top prizes in the Powerball and Mega Millions games that all topped $1 billion. The biggest jackpot was a $2.04 billion Powerball prize won in November 2022 in California.
Although the game highlights the $785 million prize, that is for a winner who is paid through an annuity over 30 years. Winners almost always choose the cash payout option, which for Monday night’s drawing would be $367 million.
The giant jackpot would also be subject to federal taxes, and some states also tax lottery winnings.
Powerball is played in 45 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.