The biggest jackpots in history
Every one of the ten largest lottery prizes in US history has been won since 2016, and four of them since 2023. That isn't luck — it's design.
Top 10 US lottery jackpots
| # | Advertised | Cash value | Game | Drawn | Winning ticket(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $2.04 billion | $997.6M | Powerball | Nov 7, 2022 | California |
| 2 | $1.817 billion | $834.9M | Powerball | Dec 24, 2025 | Arkansas |
| 3 | $1.787 billion | $820.6M | Powerball | Sep 6, 2025 | Missouri, Texas |
| 4 | $1.765 billion | $774.1M | Powerball | Oct 11, 2023 | California |
| 5 | $1.602 billion | $794.2M | Mega Millions | Aug 8, 2023 | Florida |
| 6 | $1.586 billion | $983.5M | Powerball | Jan 13, 2016 | California, Florida, Tennessee |
| 7 | $1.537 billion | $877.8M | Mega Millions | Oct 23, 2018 | South Carolina |
| 8 | $1.350 billion | $724.6M | Mega Millions | Jan 13, 2023 | Maine |
| 9 | $1.337 billion | $780.5M | Mega Millions | Jul 29, 2022 | Illinois |
| 10 | $1.326 billion | $621.0M | Powerball | Apr 7, 2024 | Oregon |
Look at the cash column. The record $2.04 billion jackpot paid $997.6 million in cash — under half — and after federal tax the winner kept roughly $628 million. Still a life-altering number, but a third of the headline. The annuity vs. cash page explains the gap.
Note the January 2016 Powerball: three winning tickets split $1.586 billion, so each took home a third.
Why jackpots keep getting bigger
Powerball has changed its rules several times, and each change made the jackpot harder to win — which makes it roll over more often, which makes it bigger.
- January 2012: ticket price doubled from $1 to $2. Twice the money into the pool per play.
- October 2015: the white-ball pool grew from 59 to 69 and the Powerball pool shrank from 35 to 26. Jackpot odds went from 1 in 175 million to 1 in 292 million. Fewer winners, longer rolls. The first billion-dollar Powerball came three months later.
- August 2021: a third weekly drawing was added on Mondays. More drawings per week means the jackpot can climb faster in calendar time.
The smaller Powerball pool was a deliberate offset: it made the low-tier prizes (matching just the Powerball, 1 in 38) slightly easier, so more players win something even as the top prize became far rarer. Mega Millions made a similar change in 2017, and again in 2025 when it raised its ticket price to $5.
How a billion-dollar roll happens
After a jackpot is won, Powerball resets to $20 million and grows by at least $2 million per drawing. At three drawings a week, a roll typically takes two to three months to reach $500 million without a winner. Past $500 million, sales rise fast enough that the jackpot can jump $100 million or more in a single drawing.
The catch for the player: those same surging sales mean more tickets in play, and the chance that at least one of them hits goes up. The September 2025 $1.787 billion drawing sold enough tickets that two winners matched — one in Missouri, one in Texas — and each got half.
What this means for the simulator
The simulator pulls the current advertised jackpot at page load. Run it during a big roll and the "You did it!" screen will show what it cost you to get there — at Ludicrous speed, typically a few hundred million dollars and a few hundred thousand years of real-time play. The odds page has the math behind that.
Jackpot figures from lottery operator announcements as compiled on Wikipedia's "Lottery jackpot records," current as of September 2026. Cash values are as announced at the time of the drawing.