Powerball Jackpot Increases To $478 Million, 5th Largest Ever

Jackie Wattles
CNN

WASHINGTON — (CNN) There’s another record-breaking jackpot up for grabs.

The Powerball jackpot swelled to $478 million after Wednesday night’s drawing yielded no jackpot winners. That’s the fifth largest Powerball prize of all time, and it’s number eight on the list of biggest lottery prizes in U.S. history.

Wednesday’s winning numbers were 10, 47, 50, 65, 68 and the Powerball was 24. The current jackpot has been growing since May 11, with 22 consecutive drawings that have failed to produce a grand prize winner.

The next drawing is set for Saturday, July 30.

This is the third Powerball jackpot to crack the list of the 10 largest U.S. lottery prizes of all time in 2016. That includes a $1.6 billion grand prize that was claimed in January, which was the biggest ever in U.S. history.

There are more big pots these days because the Powerball rules changed in October 2015, making it harder to win the grand prize. That means the winnings pile up.

The current odds of matching all six Powerball numbers to win the grand prize are about 1 in 292 million. Before the rules changed in 2015, the odds were 175 million to 1.

This jackpot will only be $478 million if the winner opts to take 29 annual payments — but virtually no grand prize winners choose to do so. As a one-time cash payout it’s worth $330.6 million, less taxes.