* This is the best lottery news for a Wednesday.

And if someone wins depending on what state you live in, the check you will get will be no more than $185,000,000 which is absolutely absurd.

$184,996,000 more than what I have now.am ready

We moved from MN

To IA

from www.usamega.com

Good thing, that saves us a little more than $17.5 Million in Tax.

Moved to IA for work.

Quite the difference between the #2 all time Annuity jackpot and the one for tonight.

Same game, same starting point, same price per ticket

1 rollover difference and a mere  $1,121,900,000 less in value

Yep it's not even a top 25 jackpot per the cash value.

My current buy ins at these after tax jackpots and ticket prices are $750,000,000 for Powerball and 2,500,000,000 for mega millions.

Maybe Todd can start a"Jokepot" list starting with this one as the number one Jokepot.  There are plenty of other games to play until the Jokepots get high enough 🤑 To buy into

I'd like to see this posted when the cash/annuity are both in the Top 25. Article is  premature in my opinion. The cash amount is underwhelming. I won't be playing this Saturday. But good luck to all who are .

  Depends on how many years you have left to play them. Your buy in points are a little too steep for you to get involved in very many of them down the road I believe. You need to play more other games and win one to sustain you until you see one grow to your acceptance level.

The 5% annual increase in payments makes the lump sum even less than it would be with constant annual payments. It pushes more money further into the future to be discounted for interest a longer time.

It makes you think that they are holding back alot of money from the jackpot.. it should have crossed a billion already

Goodbye 1995 Honda Accord.  Hello 2026 Lotus Emira.

Got to my Cardiologist's office an hour early today.   Took me back almost immediately and said going to stop @ a store on the way home to play Powerball and Mega Millions since I was feeling lucky.    Normally don't go out of my way to play there...but it was on the way home and the LED jackpot sign beckoned me to play there!

Somebody from Cali gonna win tonight. I may have to move there.

 No, how and why would they pull out and hide money paid into it. The overall interest has somewhat waned with some lottery fatigue thrown in along with they all seem to like hearing when it hits a billion and that perks up their interest so they wait. As if 500m isn't enough for anyone.

I won't let a can of pop, an ice cream cone, or a Starbucks coffee stand between me and $183,120,980.

I am off to get my ticket 🙏

I noticed this. Why has it changed?

* You got that right, and why not? They that contribute the most get the spoils. It’s as it should be.😏

* Let's get real: Every single jackpot won by folks in " other" States got there by the generosity of CA pouring in the lion's share. One can get upset with facts, but facts are facts. 🤨

I'll take it!

Speaking of Jokepots someone at the Michigan State Lottery has a sense of humor

....$73,000,000

Ho hum . . 35 rollovers and not even three quarters of a $ billion $.  We should be in $ 1+ billion $ territory already historically speaking .

I have one word to sum up my thoughts: LIVERWURST.  Time for a sandwich????

The Shagmeister has spoken.

Peace and prosperity to all!

"Yep it's not even a top 25 jackpot per the cash value. "

What really matters is that the advertised annuity is #23 but the cash that a winner will almost certainly take is only #37.  It's getting there, but as of now this one isn't a huge jackpot in terms of the biggest jackpots of the last few years.

"The 5% annual increase in payments makes the lump sum even less than it would be with constant annual payments. "

I'm surprised that you got that completely backwards. With fixed annual payments the advertised annuity would be less than the inflated advertising value they get by keeping more money invested for a longer time. Of course advertising that smaller annuity would almost certainly reduce sales a bit, making both the cash and annuity even smaller after any given number of rolls. They tell us the graduated annuity makes sense because of inflation, but I feel very confident that that's strictly PR about  decision that was based entirely on advertising a bigger jackpot.

"It makes you think that they are holding back alot of money from the jackpot."

They put in exactly the same percentage of revenue as they've done for every jackpot since the last format change almost 10 years ago, or maybe since the price increase 13 1/2 years ago. If you want them to put more money in the jackpot give them more of your money.

"Why has it changed?"

Because you also aren't buying enough tickets to make current revenue match past revenue. I'm not sure why the occasional players wait longer before getting into the game, but it's probably very similar to what I expect keeps regular players from spending as much as they used to. 10 years ago an advertised jackpot of $500 million or more was  pretty unusual, so players who were waiting for a big jackpot were getting in at 200, 300 or 400. Today we know that if we pass on the 200, 300, and 400 million dollar jackpots there's a very good chance that the same run will give us a few chances at even bigger jackpots. I suspect that another issue with the occasional players is that after they spent a few bucks on a big jackpot and didn't win anything they may have stopped playing completely.

imagine that, another roll over ROFL 

"

I'm surprised that you got that completely backwards. With fixed annual payments the advertised annuity would be less than the inflated advertising value they get by keeping more money invested for a longer time. Of course advertising that smaller annuity would almost certainly reduce sales a bit, making both the cash and annuity even smaller after any given number of rolls. They tell us the graduated annuity makes sense because of inflation, but I feel very confident that that's strictly PR about decision that was based entirely on advertising a bigger jackpot."

No, what I wrote is correct. The annual increases in the annuity payment makes the proportion of lump sum to annuity smaller.

Of course, the lump sum is the real number since it's based on sales, and it wouldn't be different with lower/higher interest rates or a different way to structure the annuity. My point is that people see the advertised jackpot and then the large haircut they have to take to get the cash, and that haircut is bigger because of the 5% annual increase "feature".

I totally agree with you but if you concern about them taking so much money after you win you can just take the installments which around $14 million a year for 30 years and net around $420 million if that makes you feel better. It's way better than $189 Million in my state and I'm young so I can deal with living off $14 million a year. Just a thought 🤷🏾‍♂️

   Most players are well over 60 however outside of the instant gratification scratch off card players. Others don't trust them to keep sending the checks yearly which is silly. Most kind of want all that cash at once. It is just a better feeling. Most know they are going to squander most of it anyway and don't care.

While I have yet to set my buy in point that high. I am running a reasonably tight 2nd.

PB -  $200,000,000.00  Cash Value

MM - $500,000,000.00 Cash/ $1.11 Billion Annuity

Good luck to all of us this coming Saturday, if you are a participant

I don't know if my post was that clear but I meant those as advertised annuity values.

Anyway good luck to all who are throwing their money away at these fake jackpot levels.

"The annual increases in the annuity payment makes the proportion of lump sum to annuity smaller."

Right, but you're reversing the cause and the effect. The graduated payments inflate the annuity, making it bigger than it would be with fixed payments. The flip side to that is that with fixed payments the proportion of annuity to lump sum is smaller. Every dollar in the prize pool (the cause) buys less annuity value (the effect). 

"Of course, the lump sum is the real number since it's based on sales, and it wouldn't be different with lower/higher interest rates or a different way to structure the annuity. "

Exactly. Sales will be whatever the sales are, and the resulting cash would buy a smaller annuity. It's the annuity value that's affected by the payment schedule, not the cash available to buy the annuity.  Advertising a smaller annuity would presumably result in smaller sales, too, to the extent that some players base the decision to buy on the advertised annuity rather than the cash value. The smaller sales would then reduce the cash and make the annuity even smaller. Again, that's almost certainly   the reason for changing to the graduated payments.

"Most kind of want all that cash at once. It is just a better feeling. Most know they are going to squander most of it anyway and don't care. "

I'm sure people know that they can afford to overindulge themselves, but I think it usually comes as a surprise when they realize that they've managed to squander most of it. Those with more sense and/or more self-control will  do their own investing instead of letting the lottery invest it and limit when they  can make a withdrawal. Spending the money too fast is a problem, but you can spend more in the first 3 to 5 years than you'd get from the annuity payments without  getting into trouble. If you took tonight's $700 million annuity and pay 5% state tax you'd average about $8 million per year for the first 4 years. If you take the cash you'd net about $196 million after taxes. You could spend $96 million in the first month if you wanted to, and you'd still have $100 million in the bank to get you through the rest of your life.

It rolled again! Maybe another billion is coming!

one can only hope P6 LOL 

best of luck every one

Bought 3 tickets today. Hoping for a miracle.

I bought 4 tickets and won nothing. But, this time it was *close*.

When I picked the lines to play out of my list of plays that I have ready to go, I missed a 2nd prize hit. The line was in my list with all 5 white balls, but I did not play it.  The Powerballs are not in the list but are added randomly or manually by me at the time of printing the playslips or by letting the lottery terminal add them randomly at purchase. So, either way, that line I did not choose to play had a 1 in 26 chance of winning the JACKPOT!

Oh well, brown stuff happens... 

But, on the bright side, I got 20 more points in my Ohio Lottery account from my losing tickets...

I'm going to choose 4 lines again and get 4 more tickets for tonight.  Who knows what might happen?

Good luck to all who play!

I bought 3 fot the last draw too and won nothing but did win $8 on the draw before that.

Keep on rolling.....

Time for a new top 25 listing

"Maybe another billion is coming! "

There roughly a 1 in 3 chance it will roll past $1 billion (to perhaps $1.1 billion). If sales are a bit better and it gets there one drawing sooner there's about a 40% chance it could just barely get past $1 billion. I could scrape by with it, but the cash value at an even billion is "only" $451 million, assuming interest rates don't change.

keep growing hehehe

I guess it has to be at least a Billion for people to get excited now.......

A billion is an eye opener, that is for sure !!    But $815M Annuity/367.9M CASH is in a pretty nice neighborhood for a $2 investment.

Good luck to all of us on Wednesday

"Maybe another billion is coming! "

"There roughly a 1 in 3 chance it will roll past $1 billion (to perhaps $1.1 billion)."

Oopsie. I realized a while after posting that 1 in 3 seemed way too low with the advertised jackpot already at $815 million. I had updated  some older info and accidentally included  probabilities for  two drawings that  already rolled.

The PB worksheet on the Texas lottery website is estimating coverage of combinations for the next five drawings as (starting with tomorrow) 12.2%, 16.3%, 17.5%,  19.9%,  and 24.7%. Based on that and sales that correspond to those coverages we might expect  a Wednesday roll to about $893 million (almost 88% chance), then $976 (60,6% cumulative chance), and $1.195 billion (48.6% cumulative chance).

Based on the last couple of estimates and actual jackpots (700 > 715, and 750 > 776.7) tomorrow's 815 may really be 840 or more. That would almost certainly push Saturday significantly past 900, and in turn we could be somewhere past an even billion next Monday. That would mean the chance of each roll is a bit lower, but the cumulative chance of getting past 1 billion would be a bit higher. I'm guessing at the latter, and a bit more than a 1 in 2 chance.

It's now $850million annuity/$383.7million cash. Might have to get another ticket.

If it rolls I would think it would be a Billion, but will probably be just a tad shy of it. Time will tell....Good luck to everyone tonight!

It rolled, and there's a very good chance it will be past the billion mark when the drawing happens. NY has been showing the final amount on the results page, and Monday's jackpot is reported as $776.7 million. That's a jump of $60.9 million over the previous drawing and Mondays have the worst increases, typically being less than the previous Wednesday to Saturday increase. For Wednesday's drawing the original $815 million seemed very conservative, and at a reported $861.2 million we got an increase of $84.5 million. That means the currently advertised $950 million is also very conservative, at only $4.3 million over what we'd see from the same $84.5 million increase. If we see an advertised jump to at least 975 I'd figure it will almost certainly reach a billion when it's done.

FWIW, NY has also been making assorted mistakes on the website lately, and right now it says there were zero winners of $950 million. I'm sure that nobody won $950 million but that's obviously a mistake, with somebody using the next drawing's amount instead of the final tally. When I saw it I did very briefly think holy chit, but quickly figured that while it could have been a lot more than 850 the chance of  a number that round was  about zero.

We should get one now...lol

Or not......Maybe its switching to top 10?

"We should get one now...lol "

We don't really need one, because the text will be mostly the same, and there will be just a minor revision to the list.  With 3 days for sales it's very unlikely we'll see any update to the advertised jackpot until around noon tomorrow, but I'll revise the list based on an even billion. 

Assuming the interest rate doesn't change the cash value of $451.5 would be #18,  about $1 million ahead of the current #18.  For any cheerleaders that think the annuity matters, it would be #13. It would miss the #12 spot by $50 million, but trail far behind #12's cash value of $776.6 million.

That's true....It should just be a Top Ten list at this point

It went to a billion!

"It went to a billion! "

And it even did it with a slight reduction in the interest rate, so the cash value is  $453.1 million.  Moving up to #17 requires another $18 million or an advertised  $1.04. They might have bumped it to a billion because it a nice round number and probably sells more tickets that "$990 million!" but if it's a genuine estimate it should be a bit conservative so 1.04 seems possible.

  The higher the jackpot the more taxes you will have to pay.

And the more money you get to play with or keep   

 Which is true but you win a billion and 540 million going to taxes makes it feel like you were cheated some. It just seems like too much they take. I think 25% would be fairer.

Taxes on a billion is $370 Million(37%)....What state do you live in that has an additional 17% state income tax  to come up to the "$540 Million in taxes" ?

Even N.Y. with an additional 10.9% doesn't come close to 17%

https://www.usamega.com/powerball/jackpot

 I just based it on if you win a million you end up with 460k on average in most states. So if you do the same math a billion gets you a net 460m if you take the cash option. Maybe they don't take as much on a billion dollar hit. Win it and then get back to us about that. I am basing tax bite on the cash value not the billion.

There isn't any state that if you win a million dollars that you only receive $460K. If they make you take the annuity to reach the million, You still get the Million dollars minus applicable taxes. If they are saying you get a cash option(such as the PB/MM provides) that is always a reduced amount. We have that in TN on the Scratch offs. You win a reduced amount for the 1 time sum. 

Federal income taxes are 37% on a million or a billion or a trillion, your state income taxes are never 17%(yet). You never have to win something to know what taxes are. Besides, this site is linked to the USAMEGA that does the State/Fed tax calculations for you for the PB or MM. just click on the link above on the left side that says"USAMEGA", then go to the left side on the next page and click on the jackpot analysis for either game. Do make sure you click on the Fed Filing status for single or married, then scroll down and find your state....Waaa Laaaa !! Just a walk in the park

CDanaT, 

On a million dollar payout only the top half is taxed at 37%. Each tax bracket is tiered.

Actually MsBee18.....If you are single, its not the top half that is at 37%, that figure is  $626,351.00 and up, for this tax year. I have attached the following for your review

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2024/10/22/irs-announces-2025-tax-brackets-standard-deductions-and-other-inflation-adjustments/

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-releases-tax-inflation-adjustments-for-tax-year-2025

I wasn't trying to be perfectly exact when commenting on the initial Million with us talking about the billion dollar jackpot and the cash value at almost $500 Million. Having a miniscule difference on exact total taxes due didn't seem to be that important. I will try and be more precise next time.