$1B+ jackpots aren’t just chance. Here’s why lottery prizes keep getting bigger
Lottery players around the country will play for the sixth-largest jackpot prize in U.S. history on Wednesday night, with the Powerball prize climbing to $1.4 billion.
With an estimated cash value of $634.3 million, it ranks as the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot and the sixth-largest overall in U.S. lottery history.
And with eight of the 10 largest jackpots occurring in just the last three years, many may wonder — what's driving these record-breaking prizes?
It's not just luck, according to the Massachusetts State Lottery.
"One of the reasons [for those changes] was to get larger jackpots, to drive up higher jackpots and generate additional interest in the games," Christian Teja, former Massachusetts Lottery Communications Director and current Chief iLottery Officer, previously told MassLive.
Game rules for both Powerball and Mega Millions were changed in 2015 and 2017, respectively, with Mega Millions undergoing another adjustment this past spring.
The first round of changes in both games involved adjusting the "numbers matrix," or the field of numbers a player selects for their lottery ticket, to make the odds of winning a jackpot "longer," the lottery said.
Powerball increased the ball pool numbers from 59 to 69, and decreased the Powerball pick from 35 to 26 balls. Conversely, Mega Millions decreased its ball pool numbers from 75 to 70, and kept its Mega Ball pick at 25.
Then, Mega Millions changed its rules again in 2025. Ticket prices increased to $5, and it took away another Mega Ball number to make the pick 24.
Since these changes, the odds of winning the jackpot in each game has decreased — but the odds of winning any smaller tier prizes has also increased.
This has made the jackpots roll for longer and allowed players to win more lower-tier prizes, therefore generating more interest in the games.
For Powerball, the odds of winning the jackpot went from 1 in 175.2 million to 1 in 292.2 million, and winning any smaller tier prize to 1 in 24.9. For Mega Millions, the odds of winning the jackpot went from 1 in 258.8 million to 1 in 302.5 million, and winning a smaller prize to 1 out of 23.
However, only one other jackpot has topped $1 billion in the past year — a $1.22 billion Mega Millions prize won in December 2024 — compared to three Powerball and two Mega Millions jackpots over $1 billion in the previous fiscal year.
This led to a "significant drop" in Powerball and Mega Millions ticket sales nationwide, Massachusetts State Lottery Director Mark William Bracken said, with a $157.4 million decline in national drawing game sales in Massachusetts alone for the fiscal year.
But save for last year's slip in billion-dollar jackpots, state lottery and Multi-State Lottery Association records show jackpot prizes have been on the increase since the changes have taken place, taking longer for players to win and therefore generating more lottery income lottery and player interest.
This is a list of the top 10 largest lottery prizes in U.S. history:
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$2.04 billion Powerball prize won on a single California ticket on Nov. 7, 2022
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$1.765 billion Powerball prize won on a single California ticket on Oct. 11, 2023
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$1.602 billion Mega Millions prize won on a single Florida ticket on Aug. 8, 2023
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$1.586 billion Powerball prize won across three tickets in California, Florida and Tennessee on Jan. 13, 2016
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$1.537 billion Mega Millions prize won on a single South Carolina ticket on Oct. 23, 2018
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$1.4 billion Powerball jackpot drawing on Sept. 3, 2025
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$1.348 billion Mega Millions prize won on a single Maine ticket on Jan. 13, 2023
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$1.337 billion Mega Millions prize won on a single Illinois ticket on July 29, 2022
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$1.326 billion Powerball prize won on a single Oregon ticket on April 7, 2024
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$1.22 billion Mega Millions prize won on a single California ticket on Dec. 27, 2024
Massachusetts State Lottery
Read the original article on MassLive .
