The Powerball jackpot has reached an estimated $1.5bn, but the odds of winning the lottery aren’t always in your favour.
After no winning ticket seemed to match all six numbers during Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing, the Powerball jackpot has climbed to a whopping $1.5bn prize. Now, lottery players are snatching up Powerball tickets for a chance at the now second-largest lottery prize in American history.
While there’s no determining exactly what the lucky numbers will be at the next drawing, there are certain numbers you can choose that will increase your chances of winning the Powerball.
To play Powerball, hopefuls must pick five numbers between 1 to 69 and then choose one Powerball number between 1 to 26. The first five numbers drawn appear on the white balls, while the Powerball number is shown using a red ball. If a player has a ticket that matches all of the five winning numbers plus the Powerball number, then they win the jackpot.
One of the most popular strategies for winning the Powerball jackpot is choosing the lottery’s most common winning numbers. According to Lotto Numbers, which tracks Powerball statistics over time, these are the most common white ball numbers that have been drawn from 2015 to 2022.
The number 61 has been pulled 78 times throughout the past 800 Powerball drawings, the most recent time being 17 September. Next on the list of most common white ball numbers is 32, with a total of 77 times. Sixty-three, 21, 69, 23, 36, 62, 39, 59, 20, 37, 27, 3, 53, 10, 2 and 6 are also very common.
Out of the Powerball numbers – those displayed on the red ball – the most popular winning number is 24. Since 2015, the number 24 has been the final Powerball number a total of 45 times, as recently as five days ago.
When it comes to picking lottery numbers, it’s important to know the least common numbers pulled, too. Out of the regular drawing, the least common white ball numbers have been 34, 26, 13, 4, 24, 35, 49, 46, 51, 9, 43, 60, 31, 66, 29, 58, 25, and 38. For the Powerball drawing, the least common winning red ball number is 23.
During Wednesday night’s drawing, in which no winner matched all six numbers, the white balls drawn were 22, 11, 60, 2, and 35, and the red Powerball number was 23.
Although nobody snagged the grand prize, there were 16 winning tickets worth $1m matching all five white balls on Wednesday’s drawing. Three other tickets were sold that won $2m, according to Powerball.
This is only the second time the Powerball jackpot has reached $1bn in its 30-year history, according to the lottery website. The large prize will be given to winners who choose to take the full amount over 29 annual payments.
The next Powerball drawing occurs on Saturday, 5 November at 10.59 pm ET.
