NORFOLK, Va. — Wednesday’s Powerball drawing is your next chance to win more than one billion dollars.
The current $1.2 billion jackpot is the third largest in Powerball history, and it marks the fourth time this year that any lottery jackpot has eclipsed one billion dollars.
It’s no coincidence why we’re seeing bigger jackpots lately: there are four things that explain why.
First, back in 2010, the two major lotteries -- Mega Millions and Powerball -- reached an agreement to cross-sell tickets. This allowed the same stores to sell both types of tickets. Before that agreement, stores only sold one or the other. Essentially, the playing pool grew big time for both lotteries.
The second change involves the odds.
In 2015, Powerball increased the pool of white balls and decreased the number of red balls pulled during a drawing.
People now had a 1-in-25 chance of winning anything, better than the original 1-in-32 odds, but the chances of winning the jackpot shrunk from 1-in-175-million to 1-in-292-million. All that to say, the big prize increased because it was harder to hit.
The third change is straightforward: the price of tickets has increased.
Powerball raised its price from $1 to $2 per ticket in 2012, and Mega Millions followed in 2017. The higher the cost, the quicker the jackpot grows.
Finally, a lurking variable involving the economy is affecting jackpot sizes. The advertised jackpots are based on the annual payments, or annuities that are offered when winning the big prize.
Those annuities are based on interest rates. With interest rates jumping significantly over the last year, the lottery jumped too.
That, combined with the three other changes, explains why five of the top 10 largest jackpots in lottery history have happened since last summer.