Powerball and Mega Millions both rolled over the weekend—here's what the data shows

ORLANDO, FL — Apr 28, 2026

Neither Powerball nor Mega Millions produced a jackpot winner over the weekend, extending both games' rollover streaks and pushing combined advertised jackpots past $2.3 billion heading into the week ahead. Powerball's Saturday draw added a 34th consecutive rollover to its current streak, while Mega Millions' Friday draw extended its active sequence to 21 rollovers, according to winning number data from both games.

The dual rollover carries real significance for lottery research. When both major games roll over in the same weekend, ticket sales typically spike the following Monday—a pattern visible in sales data from the last comparable rollover cycle in November 2024. The combined jackpot size, not just the individual game sizes, influences how many tickets enter the system. That dynamic feeds back into draw probabilities and expected value calculations for players evaluating which game offers better odds of a secondary-tier hit.

The numbers stayed cold across both drawings

Powerball's Saturday draw produced white balls of 14, 28, 41, 53, and 67, with a Powerball of 8. Mega Millions' Friday drawing yielded white balls of 7, 19, 34, 52, and 63, with a Mega Ball of 14. Neither combination had matched the jackpot odds of 1 in 292,201,338 for Powerball or 1 in 290,472,336 for Mega Millions, but secondary prizes—the Match 5 (white ball only) tier in both games—did hit in multiple states.

The white ball distributions in both draws tracked within expected ranges for randomness. In Powerball's case, the 67 marked the 23rd time in the last 100 draws that a ball numbered 50 or higher appeared in the winning set. In Mega Millions, the 63 was the 26th such occurrence over the same span. Neither frequency is unusual; randomness produces visual clusters that humans interpret as patterns when none exist statistically.

What did stand out was the absence of consecutive or near-consecutive numbers in either draw. Powerball's closest pair was 41-53 (a gap of 12). Mega Millions' closest was 34-52 (a gap of 18). This absence of tight clustering is actually more common than most players assume—roughly 67 percent of five-number combinations across the range have no two numbers within five positions of each other.

Secondary prizes carried the action

While jackpots rolled over, secondary-tier wins kept the games producing meaningful payouts. Powerball's Match 5 (five white balls, no Powerball) paid $1,000,000 across multiple winners in Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania, according to state lottery reports. Mega Millions' Match 5 tier (five white balls, no Mega Ball) paid $250,000 per ticket in California and New York.

The secondary-tier hit rate matters more than most casual players realize. The odds of matching the five white balls in Powerball—without the Powerball itself—are 1 in 11,688,054. That is still punishing, but it represents a roughly 25,000-fold improvement over jackpot odds. Over the course of a year of play, a player spending $2 per week on Powerball has a statistical expectation of hitting the $1 million tier once every 449 years. The math does not improve with volume, only with time and bad luck.

Rollover streaks now compete for historical rank

Powerball's 34-draw streak places it in the middle ranks of modern rollover sequences. The longest in the game's history remains the 41-consecutive-draw streak that ended on January 20, 2016, when three winners split a $1.586 billion jackpot. The second-longest was 39 draws, ending in May 2023. The current 34-draw run will need to continue through at least Wednesday's draw to match the third-longest streak of 35, which occurred in 2012.

Mega Millions' 21-draw streak is shorter in absolute terms but reflects recent volatility in the game. The longest Mega Millions streak in the post-2017 format (which uses a smaller pool of white balls and higher jackpot odds) was 29 consecutive rollovers, ending in March 2024 with a $20 million base-case jackpot that had grown to $142 million. The current 21-draw run is not extraordinary by that standard, but it is notable enough to warrant tracking through the coming weeks.

Both streaks are products of pure variance—nothing more. Each draw is independent; the probability of a jackpot winner on Wednesday is identical to the probability on any other draw day, regardless of how many times the ball has not been drawn. The psychological weight of "a long streak" is human pattern-seeking, not a mathematical signal of an impending hit.

What the next draws set up

Powerball's advertised jackpot for Wednesday is expected to reach $415 million, with a cash option of roughly $210 million. Mega Millions' Tuesday drawing carries an advertised jackpot of $318 million, with an estimated cash value near $160 million. Both figures assume no additional rollovers occur on Monday (when neither game draws) and no outside variables shift payout percentages.

The combined advertised total of $733 million is enough to push ticket sales into above-average territory for a mid-week draw cycle. Multi-State Lottery Association data from comparable periods shows that jackpots in the $300 million–$500 million range per game generate roughly 30 to 40 percent higher ticket volume than base-case draws (when jackpots sit at $20 million). That increased volume does not improve individual ticket odds—it only redistributes the probability of a win across more tickets.

"Players should understand that the size of the jackpot has no bearing on the probability of winning it," the Powerball Product Group stated in its 2024 game rules update. "Each ticket has an equal chance of winning the jackpot, whether the advertised amount is $20 million or $2 billion. The size of the prize pool does not change the odds."

The historical pattern: when rollovers end

Data from the past decade shows that 34-draw streaks in Powerball typically end one of two ways: either a jackpot winner emerges and claims the prize (ending the streak immediately), or sales volume drops after media attention fades and the streak continues for another five to ten draws before a winner finally appears. The second scenario accounts for roughly 60 percent of streak terminations.

Mega Millions' 21-draw streak sits at an inflection point. Past patterns suggest that streaks of 20-25 draws have a 55 percent probability of ending within the next five draws and a 75 percent probability of ending within ten draws. These are not predictions—they are observed frequencies from historical data—but they offer a rough framework for what to watch.

The data also shows that when a jackpot winner finally hits, the amount won is typically 15 to 25 percent higher than the base-case starting jackpot for that game. Powerball's last jackpot winner (December 2024, $500 million) took an amount that had rolled over 19 times; Mega Millions' last winner (February 2025, $142 million) followed a 12-draw rollover streak. Neither was at the extreme end of historical ranges, but both reflect the compound growth that occurs over multi-week stretches.

The ticket-buying calculus

For players weighing whether mid-week jackpots in the $300 million–$500 million range justify additional spending, the math is unforgiving. A $20 ticket (10 Powerball tickets or 10 Mega Millions tickets) has identical odds of winning the jackpot as a $1 ticket: 1 in 292,201,338 for Powerball, 1 in 290,472,336 for Mega Millions. The higher spend only increases the chance of a secondary-tier win, which has positive expected value only at the Match 5 level—and even then, only in the trivial sense that buying ten tickets yields roughly ten times as many chances to hit that tier. The underlying expectation remains deeply negative. A player should spend only what they can afford to lose without affecting essential expenses or financial goals.

Sources

• Powerball winning numbers and jackpot information: powerball.com
• Mega Millions drawing results and game rules: megamillions.com
• Multi-State Lottery Association historical game data: musl.com
• Powerball 2024 game rules and product guide: powerball.com/game-rules