Lump Sum Would Give Powerball Winner $195M After Taxes

  • The $335 million jackpot for the Powerball drawing held on Wednesday went unclaimed.
  • The next Powerball jackpot is sitting at $353 million for the next drawing on Saturday.

DETROIT – There was not a winner in the last Powerball drawing Wednesday. Since nobody was able to win the great fortune, the jackpot will grow even higher for the next drawing on Saturday.

The Powerball drawing will be worth $353 million with a cash option of $256 million. Powerball tickets only cost a mere $2, but the likelihood of winning the jackpot is 1 in 292,201,338.

Powerball draws on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. while Mega Millions draws on Tuesdays and Fridays at 11 p.m.

Any sort of lottery jackpot win is life-changing, but Uncle Sam is still going to want his cut. The $256 million cash option comes with a 24% federal tax withholding of $61.4 million. That would leave the lucky lottery winner with $194.6 million, a little more than half of what they were originally intended to win when their numbers got called

Top 5 Largest US Lottery Jackpots Ever Won

  1. $1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016 (three tickets, from California, Florida, Tennessee)
  2. $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018 (one ticket, from South Carolina)
  3. $1.05 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 22, 2021 (one ticket, from Michigan)
  4. $768.4 million, Powerball, March 27, 2019 (one ticket, from Wisconsin)
  5. $758.7 million, Powerball, Aug. 23, 2017 (one ticket, from Massachusetts)

The Powerball might make its way onto the list of largest gambling wins from the lottery if nobody wins the next few drawing, but it still has a while to go.