The Billion-Dollar Dream Is Back: Powerball Jackpot Nears Historic Territory

State-run lotteries in the United States date back to 1964, when the New Hampshire Lottery launched as the nation’s first modern lotto. In the six decades since, only 14 lottery prizes have surpassed the $1 billion mark. Powerball could soon produce the 15th billion-dollar jackpot.

Powerball’s top prize hasn’t hit since May 2, when two winners in Florida and Texas split a $20 million prize. The jackpot wins came just days after the April 29 drawing, where two tickets in Indiana and Kansas shared a $143 million prize.

After a fast start to 2026, where the Powerball jackpot hit five times in five months, the game has gone more than three months without a single ticket matching the five white balls and red Powerball. The jackpot has sidestepped players for 40 consecutive drawings, rolling the top prize over to an estimated $856 million for this Saturday’s (Aug. 8) drawing.

The $856 million jackpot ranks eighth all-time in Powerball and marks the 16th-largest lottery prize in US history. The Aug. 8 drawing comes with the one-time cash option of an estimated $372 million. Both payouts are before federal and state taxes.

Wednesday Powerball Results

No one hit the Powerball jackpot on Wednesday (Aug. 5), but one ticket holder still scored a life-changing windfall. A single Match 5 ticket sold in Ohio matched all five white balls to win the game’s $1 million second-tier prize—though the winner left an extra $1 million on the table by skipping the $1 Power Play option.

The Wednesday Powerball numbers were 14, 20, 59, 60, 61, and the Powerball was 25.

Twenty tickets matched four white balls and the Powerball for $50,000 wins. Another three Match 4 + PB tickets had the Power Play to double their prizes to $100,000 each.

In all, more than 1.12 million tickets won a prize last night, though 815,079 of the winning plays netted just $2.

Lottery Helped Found Colonial America

Lotteries played a major role in funding Colonial America, with the games serving as a form of voluntary tax to support defense, infrastructure, and the creation of colleges. Back then, playing the lottery wasn’t a vice or a guilty pleasure but was perceived as a colonist’s civic duty.

“Lotteries were one of the biggest ways that the 13 colonies supported themselves financially. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the colonies used lotteries to fund libraries, churches, and colleges, and even tried to use them to fund the American Revolution,” History.com reports. “Lotteries paid for public buildings, roads, and canals. Influential figures like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock sponsored lotteries for specific projects.”

Lotteries helped fund some of the country’s most prestigious colleges, including Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, and Princeton.