A single number cost him a billion: dramatic Powerball near miss
A man in DeRidder, Louisiana, was one of a number of Powerball players who have come close to ending the lottery’s growing run without a jackpot winner.
The Powerball jackpot has rolled over to a staggering $1.8 billion this weekend, with the U.S. lottery currently on a run of over 40 straight draws without yielding a grand-prize winner.
When was the last Powerball jackpot winner?
The last time a Powerball player landed the grand prize was on May 31, when a single ticket in California earned a $205 million pot.
Since then, the jackpot has climbed to the second-highest total in the history of both Powerball and U.S. lottery history. The $1.7bn top prize is surpassed only by the $2.04bn jackpot scooped by California man Edwin Castro in November 2022.
What’s more, the run of 42 draws without a jackpot-winning ticket is the longest such streak in Powerball history, organizers say.
To win the Powerball jackpot, players must correctly guess five ‘white ball’ numbers between 1 and 69, and one Powerball number between 1 and 29. And in the three months since the last jackpot was won, there have been countless near misses.
“Shocked and blessed”
Indeed, in the last two draws alone, there have been 329 tickets that have been a single number away from winning the grand prize, according to official Powerball figures. A ticket can fall one short of the jackpot either by matching every number but the Powerball, or by matching four white balls and the Powerball.
One such example is Louisiana man John Stokes, who won $150,000 in Monday’s Labor Day draw.
He would have earned $1.1 billion by guessing just one more white-ball number correctly, but nonetheless described himself as “shocked and blessed” to have scooped a six-figure check.
According to Louisiana Lottery, the agency that runs Powerball in the Pelican State, Stokes purchased his ticket at Billie’s Wag-A-Bag on W 1st Street in DeRidder, a city of around 10,000 in western Louisiana.
On top of the $2 cost of his ticket, he paid $1 to trigger the Power Play option, allowing him to triple what would otherwise have been a $50,000 prize.
“The night he purchased the ticket, Stokes says he and his family were about to go to bed when they randomly decided to check the winning numbers,” Louisiana Lottery revealed, adding: “John plans to use a portion of his winnings to pay off some bills.”
When is the next Powerball draw?
This weekend’s Powerball draw takes place today, Saturday, September 6, at 10:59 p.m. ET/7:59 p.m. PT.
The $1.8bn jackpot comes with a smaller “cash value” of $826.4 million. This is how much a sole jackpot winner would receive were they to choose to claim their prize as a lump sum.
They would only get the full jackpot amount by accepting it in 29 annual instalments - what’s known as the “annuity option”.
The Powerball’s jackpot odds
A single Powerball ticket has a one in 292,201,338 chance of matching five white balls and the Powerball.
Your odds of getting five white balls but no Powerball are 11,688,053.52 to one, while your prospects of guessing four white balls and the Powerball - as John Stokes did - are one in 913,129.18.
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