The fourth-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history could become the largest ever if no one wins the top prize in Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing. The jackpot currently sits at $1.2 billion. There have been 38 consecutive draws without a jackpot winner since the last one won the big prize on August 3rd. The jackpot grows after each drawing without a winner and is now approaching the record $1.586 billion won by three Powerball players in 2016. The second and third largest prizes were won by players of the Mega Millions lottery game. “I think it would be close to a record if not a record,” said Drew Switko, executive director of the Pennsylvania Lottery. “The record $1.586 billion we had in 2016 is achievable, but it really depends on two factors.” The first factor is the number of tickets sold and flying out of lottery machines around the country. For Monday night’s drawing, 131.6 million Powerball games were sold, said Anna Domoto, a spokeswoman for the Multistate Lottery Association, which oversees the game. This amounted to 36.3% of all possible number combinations covered, as millions of players picked the same numbers. That’s a lot, but considering the odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, that means about 186 million number combinations were not covered, which is why no one won the big prize. Although the focus of the game is the $1.2 billion prize—that’s the amount for an annuity, spread over 29 annual payments—almost all winners choose a cash prize, which would be $596.7 million. However, the advertised prize is based on the annuity, and that’s where the second factor in determining the jackpot comes in, as higher interest rates cause annuities to grow faster. In other words, the $596.7 million in cash goes into investments that will eventually pay $1.2 billion, and those investments grow faster as interest rates rise. “We use investments to fund the annuity to pay that prize, so the investments are interest-based, and the degree to which interest rates affect the value of those investments also affects that jackpot,” Svitko said. For some players, it’s not about the big prize. “What’s so fun about that?” Jeff Bennett asked Monday. “It’s the potential to win, not that you win. It’s the potential – you buy hope.” But even with the massive jackpot, not everyone has caught Powerball fever. “It’s no use,” said a man named Diego. “I mean, you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than winning that lotto.”
