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What are the odds you win the lottery?
What are the odds you win the lottery? You're more likely to be struck by lightning.
After months without a jackpot winner, Christmas Eve could become unforgettable for some lottery players.
Powerball tickets stuffed in a stocking or placed under the tree this year could be worth more than a billion bucks.
Powerball jackpot
By the numbers:
The jackpot now stands at an estimated $1.7 billion – and is one of the largest lottery prizes in U.S. history.
Dig deeper:
The United States' 4th-largest jackpot on record comes after 46 consecutive draws without someone claiming to have all six numbers. The last contest with a jackpot winner was on Sept. 6.
RELATED: Powerball jackpot spikes to $1.7 billion for Christmas Eve drawing
Winning the jackpot
Big picture view:
A range of prizes can be claimed for the lucky jackpot winner:
- Cash value of $781.3 million
- Take an annuity, with an immediate payment and then annual payments over 29 years that increase by 5% each time
Smaller prizes are also in play.
At the last drawing, players in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Wisconsin each won $1 million. There are also prizes outside the jackpot, ranging from a few dollars to $2 million.
Remember:
Last year, someone won a big $1.2 billion prize just a couple days after Christmas – on Dec. 27 in California.
What's next:
If no one wins the jackpot this Christmas Eve, the next drawing will be Saturday, Dec. 27.
FILE - A horizontal studio shot of a blue spruce pine tree with a small felt stocking that is holding three lottery scratch tickets. Getty Images
RELATED: Powerball Dec. 2025 vs. the biggest lottery jackpots in history
Tougher lottery odds
The backstory:
The odds used to be notably better, but the game was made tougher in 2015 to create the exorbitant jackpots we’re seeing today. The tougher odds partly helped set the stage for back-to-back record-breaking sweepstakes this year.
By the numbers:
The odds used to be at 1 in 175 million, but are now set at 1 in 292.2 million.
Dig deeper:
It’s hard to explain what odds of 1 in 292.2 million mean. Even if halved, they remain difficult to digest.
In the past, one math professor described the odds of flipping a coin and getting heads 28 straight times.
Tim Chartier, a Davidson College math professor in North Carolina, on Monday compared the odds of a winning lottery ticket to selecting one marked dollar bill from a stack 19 miles high.
"It’s true that if you buy 100 tickets, you are 100 times more likely to win. But in this case, ‘100 times more likely’ barely moves the probability needle," Chartier said. "Using the time analogy, buying 100 tickets is like getting 100 guesses to name that one chosen second over nine years. Possible — but wildly improbable."
The Source: Information in this article was taken from the Powerball website. Background information was taken from The Associated Press. This story was reported from Detroit.