Powerball jackpot soars to $820M ahead of Saturday’s lotto drawing

Three Powerball players won lesser prizes Wednesday night

One lucky Powerball player could win an eye-watering $820 million on Saturday night after no one won the jackpot Wednesday.

The winning numbers for Wednesday’s drawing were 1, 14, 20, 46 and 51. The red Powerball was 26.

While the Powerball jackpot went untouched Wednesday night there were three winners of lesser prizes. A gambler in Kentucky took home $2 million on the Match 5 + Power Play and two other players, one in California and one in Florida, won the Match 5 worth $1 million.

The lotto prize has climbed from an estimated $779 million to $820 million with a new cash value of $383.5 million.

One lucky Powerball player could win an eye-watering $820 million on Saturday after no one won the jackpot Wednesday (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

If you win the Powerball, you can decide between the lump-sum or annuity option. The jaw-dropping $820 million jackpot is the annuity option. If you choose this option, you will receive the money in 30 annual payments. The cash value option, $383.5 million, is the money you’ll receive if you choose the one-time, lump-sum payment.

Just this past September, a Powerball player in Missouri and another in Texas shared a nearly $1.8 billion jackpot. The unnamed player from Missouri said in a news release from the Missouri Lottery at the time, “I’m going to just do me for a year,” after his big win.

The Missouri man described himself as a “homebody,” jokingly saying that his wife is “going to drag me out of town now.”

The winning numbers for Wednesday’s drawing were 1, 14, 20, 46 and 51. The red Powerball was 26 (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The biggest Powerball jackpot in history, worth $2.04 billion, was won in November 2022 by Edwin Castro of California. The large prize also helped raise $156m for California’s public school system, drawn from ticket sales within the Golden State.

"As much as I am shocked and ecstatic to have won the Powerball drawing, the real winner is the California public school system," Castro said in a statement following his record-breaking win.

The California Lottery has generated more than $48 billion for the state’s public schools since 1985.