Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots soar into the weekend, both topping $700 million

ORLANDO, FL — Apr 24, 2026

Both of America's largest multi-state lottery games are heading into the weekend with eye-catching jackpots: Powerball has rolled to $754 million while Mega Millions sits at $718 million. Neither game has seen a jackpot winner in weeks, and ticket sales are climbing as players chase prizes that rival some of the largest payouts in lottery history.

The combined top prizes represent a rare convergence — a moment when two jackpots surge simultaneously — that typically drives a spike in ticket sales across all 45 states that participate in one or both games. The last time Powerball's jackpot exceeded $750 million was January 2023, when it peaked at $842.4 million before a winner claimed it. Mega Millions has not hit a jackpot over $700 million since October 2023's $1.602 billion record. For players eyeing the weekend draws, both games offer annuity options of roughly seven hundred million dollars, or cash values in the neighborhood of $350 million to $370 million each, depending on interest rates and final ticket sales.

The rollover streak building both jackpots

Powerball's current jackpot is the product of 37 consecutive draws without a grand-prize winner, a streak that began on Mar. 3, and has added roughly $20 million to the pool each draw. Mega Millions, meanwhile, has rolled over 41 times since its last jackpot hit on Feb. 4, building at a slightly faster rate per draw due to higher ticket volumes.

These numbers illustrate the math of jackpot growth. Each drawing that produces no jackpot-tier winner rolls the entire unclaimed prize forward to the next draw, plus a new base allocation. Powerball's base allocation is approximately $20 million; Mega Millions' is also $20 million. With millions of tickets sold per draw in each game, the surplus funds that don't match the top six numbers flow into the next jackpot pool. Over 37 and 41 draws respectively, compound growth turns modest starting jackpots into nine figures.

Powerball's $754 million compared to history

At $754 million, Powerball ranks among the top 15 largest jackpots in the game's 31-year history. It trails the January 2016 jackpot of $1.586 billion—the largest Powerball has ever offered—but exceeds the $687.8 million that rolled in August 2013, when a Florida ticket claimed a record at that time.

Mega Millions' $718 million position is even more significant by recency. The last time Mega Millions offered a jackpot in this range was October 2023, when the pool reached $1.602 billion—the highest in that game's history. The current $718 million is approximately 45 percent of that record, which suggests the money is there and the momentum is building toward another potential record or near-record by late spring if the rollover streak continues.

The cash-value option deserves attention for players considering a lump-sum claim. Powerball's $754 million annuity is expected to yield a cash option of roughly $370 to $380 million. Mega Millions' $718 million should translate to approximately $350 to $365 million cash, depending on interest-rate conditions at the time a winner claims. These are still transformative sums—enough to place a winner in the top 0.01 percent of U.S. household wealth—but they represent a 48 to 52 percent reduction from the advertised annuity, a math that many winners find makes the cash choice appealing despite its smaller headline number.

What draws the eyes of serious players

High jackpots alone do not explain ticket-sales surges. The odds of winning either game's jackpot remain unchanged: 1 in 292,201,338 for Powerball and 1 in 290,472,336 for Mega Millions. A $50 ticket purchase on Powerball offers the same infinitesimal probability of a jackpot win as a $5 ticket. Yet when a jackpot climbs above $500 million, player behavior shifts. Research from the Multi-State Lottery Association has shown that jackpot visibility—the sheer size of a number—drives ticket sales more predictably than odds improvements do.

"Large jackpots attract broader audiences," the MUSL noted in its 2023 annual report on game performance. Players who do not normally buy lottery tickets often enter the market when a jackpot reaches headline-grabbing territory. This influx of casual players means more total tickets sold, which statistically increases the chance that some winning combination will be matched—and, by extension, that the next jackpot resets rather than rolls over again.

The psychology is straightforward. A $754 million prize is incomprehensibly large; a $370 million cash option is a comprehensible fortune. The gap between "worth playing" and "not worth the dollar" shrinks dramatically when the potential payoff eclipses three hundred million dollars. Whether that perception is rational is a separate question entirely.

The schedule heading into next week

Powerball draws three times per week—Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday nights at 10:59 PM Eastern. The next draw after this weekend's Saturday event (April 26) will occur Monday, April 28. If no jackpot winner emerges on Saturday, the Monday jackpot will likely exceed $800 million, assuming ticket-sales patterns hold.

Mega Millions draws on Tuesday and Friday nights. The upcoming Friday draw (April 25) will be followed by Tuesday, April 29. A Friday victory would reset both the Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots to their base amounts—$20 million for each game—a scenario that would interrupt the current surge but also open a new growth cycle.

Historical precedent suggests that jackpots in this range draw ticket purchases from an estimated 25 to 35 percent of the U.S. adult population, compared to 5 to 8 percent for smaller jackpots. That expansion of the player pool also expands the likelihood of multiple jackpot winners on a single draw, an outcome that splits the prize among co-winners. The January 2016 Powerball record of $1.586 billion was claimed by three tickets, each taking home approximately $529 million annuity before taxes.

A reality check on odds and expectations

Even a $754 million jackpot carries odds so remote that ticket purchases are not, in any rational sense, an investment strategy or a savings plan. The probability of matching all six numbers in Powerball is one in 292.2 million—less likely than being dealt a perfect hand of poker twice in succession, or being struck by lightning in the same year you win a state lottery second prize.

Buying multiple tickets incrementally improves those odds in a mathematical sense, but the improvement is negligible below a spend in the tens of thousands of dollars, a sum that most players cannot justify. A $20 weekly spend on Powerball across a year—$1,040 total—carries the same practical probability of a jackpot win as a $1 ticket. Players should treat lottery spending as entertainment cost, not wealth-building strategy. The 292-million-to-one math doesn't budge when the jackpot grows.

Sources

• Multi-State Lottery Association game rules and historical jackpot data: musl.com
• Powerball official drawing schedule and odds: powerball.com
• Mega Millions official drawing schedule and odds: megamillions.com
• MUSL 2023 annual performance report on jackpot impact: musl.com/about