By Isabelle Stanley for Dailymail.Com 5:58 p.m. December 25, 2023, updated 6:03 p.m. December 25, 2023
- Someone could get the best Christmas present ever when the Powerball lottery soars to $638 million
- Tickets are still on sale ahead of Monday night's drawing, but cutoff times vary by state
One lucky person could win the Christmas present of a lifetime today as the Powerball lottery has reached $638 million and will be drawn tonight.
The jackpot for Monday night's drawing is an estimated $638 million, with a cash prize of $321 million.
Tickets are on sale ahead of today's draw at 10:59 p.m. ET, but cutoff times vary by state, so it's important to check your local time – tickets are $2 for each game.
According to Powerball, the Christmas Day jackpot has only been won three times.
The chance of winning the entire sum is just 1 in 292.2 million.
The chance of winning the Powerball is only 1 in 292 million, but if no one wins, the jackpot increases. The jackpot has reached £638 million after no-one won on Saturday
The last Christmas Day win was in 2013, when a player in Missouri won a $71.5 million jackpot.
The last time someone won a huge jackpot was in October, when a massive winning ticket worth $1.765 billion was sold in Southern California. It was the second-largest lottery win of all time.
The largest US lottery jackpot in history was an incredible $2.04 billion and was won in California on November 8, 2022.
Edwin Castro was the lucky winner who used his fortune to buy luxury properties in Los Angeles from famous real estate agent Mauricio Umansky.
Now someone else has the chance to become a multimillionaire on Christmas night.
“This could be a Merry Christmas for a Powerball player,” said Drew Svitko, chairman of the Powerball product group.
“It’s not often that a Powerball drawing coincides with the Christmas holidays and a jackpot of this size.”
Powerball is one of the most popular lottery games in the United States – over 181 million Americans participate 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 drawn more often
The Christmas jackpot is the fourth Powerball jackpot to reach more than half a billion dollars this year, according to Powerball.
Powerball drawings take place three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday at 10:59 p.m. EST.
When someone wins the lottery, they generally have two options for claiming their prize money.
They either accept a lump sum that is paid to them immediately, or they claim the full jackpot amount, which is paid to them in the form of pensions over the next 30 years.
The Powerball odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to generate big jackpots, with the prizes getting bigger as they keep changing if no one wins.
Winnings would be subject to federal tax, and many states also tax lottery winnings.
Powerball is played in 45 states as well as Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
A fascinating study by gambling site CSGO analyzed the most frequently drawn numbers in over 950 draws between 2015 and 2023
Superstitious people may want to avoid selecting specific numbers on their tickets.
The number 13 is notoriously unlucky, and new research appears to have confirmed that this is indeed the case in the Powerball drawing.
A new study has revealed the Powerball numbers that are most – and least – likely to be selected.
Experts from gambling site CSGO analyzed the most frequently drawn numbers in over 950 draws between 2015 and 2023.
The number 13 is the least common – it has only been drawn 51 times in the last eight years, the research found.
However, it turned out that the number 61 was the “luckiest” number, having been chosen 90 times during this period.