One lucky person could win the Christmas present of a lifetime today as the Powerball lottery reaches $638 million and is set to be drawn tonight.
The jackpot for Monday night’s drawing is an estimated $638 million, with a cash prize of $321 million.
Tickets are still on sale before the draw at 10.59pm ET today but cut-off times vary by state, so it is important to check your local time – tickets cost $2 for each play.
According to Powerball, the jackpot has only ever been won three times on Christmas Day.
The odds of winning the whole sum are just 1 in 292.2 million.
The odds of winning the Powerball are just 1 in 292 million, but if no one wins, the jackpot rolls over
The jackpot has reached £638 million after no one won on Saturday
The most recent Christmas Day win was in 2013 when a player in Missouri claimed a $71.5 million jackpot.
The last time somebody won a massive jackpot was in October when a huge $1.765 billion winning ticket was sold in southern California. It was the second-highest lottery prize of all time.
The largest U.S. lottery jackpot in history was a staggering $2.04 billion, which was won on November 8, 2022, in California.
Edwin Castro was the lucky winner who used his fortune to buy luxury real estate in Los Angeles from celebrity realtor Mauricio Umansky.
Now, someone else has the chance to become a multi-millionaire over Christmas night.
‘This could be a very Merry Christmas for a Powerball player,’ Powerball product group chair Drew Svitko said.
‘It’s not often we have a Powerball drawing coincide with the Christmas holiday and with a jackpot of this magnitude.’
Powerball is one of the most popular lottery games in the US – with over 181 million Americans entering every year
Rong Chen, a statistics professor at Rutgers University, previously told DailyMail.com that although some numbers are drawn more often, that does not mean they are more likely to be drawn
The Christmas jackpot is the fourth Powerball jackpot to reach more than half a billion dollars this year, according to Powerball.
Powerball drawings are held three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday at 10:59 pm EST.
When somebody wins the lottery they generally have two options as to how they can claim their prize money.
Either they accept a lump sum, which is paid to them immediately, or they claim the full ‘headline’ jackpot amount, which will be paid to them in annuities over the next 30 years.
Powerball’s odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to generate big jackpots, with prizes becoming ever larger as they repeatedly roll over when no one wins.
Winnings would be subject to federal taxes, and many 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.
A fascinating study from gambling site CSGO analyzed the most commonly drawn numbers in over 950 drawings between 2015 and 2023
The superstitious may want to avoid picking certain numbers on their tickets.
The number 13 is notoriously unlucky, and new research seems to have confirmed that this is indeed the case when it comes to the Powerball drawing.
A new study has unveiled the Powerball numbers which are the most likely – and the least likely – to be selected.
Experts from gambling site CSGO analyzed the most commonly drawn numbers in over 950 drawings between 2015 and 2023.
The number 13 is the least common – having been drawn only 51 times in the last eight years, the research found.
The number 61, however, was discovered to be the ‘luckiest’ number, having been picked 90 times during the period.