Powerball jackpot rises to $1.7 billion ahead of Saturday’s drawing. What are your chances of winning?

The Powerball jackpot has climbed to an estimated $1.7 billion — the third-largest jackpot in Powerball history — after no one won the grand prize on Wednesday night.

That means there’s still a chance — one in about 292 million — that someone could take home the jackpot after Saturday’s drawing. Unfortunately, a person is more likely to get eaten by a shark than win the Powerball jackpot. But, hey, you never know.

If there’s a winner from Saturday night’s drawing, they can choose between a $1.7 billion prize paid out in yearly payments or one big payment estimated at $770.3 million. Both amounts are before taxes.

I need to check my Powerball numbers. What were they from Monday’s drawing?

The winning Powerball numbers for Wednesday, Sept. 3, were 3-16-29-61-69, and the Powerball was 33.

The Power Play multiplier was 2X.

That’s a lot of numbers. How do you play?

First, purchase a Powerball ticket, which you can do at a local convenience store, gas station or grocery store. (This excludes Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah, where Powerball is not played.)

You’ll pick a total of six numbers. The first five numbers have to be between 1 and 69 for the white balls. For the red Powerball, you’ll pick one number between 1 and 26.

You can choose your numbers by filling out a play slip, or you can have them randomly selected by a computer.

The drawing of the numbers is held live every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET in Florida. Sales cut-off times before the drawing vary by one to two hours, depending on the location. You can watch the drawings here.

Let’s cut to the chase. How do you win?

In order to win the grand prize jackpot, you have to match the numbers of all five white balls (in any order) and the red Powerball number in a given play line. You cannot crisscross play lines or combine numbers from other tickets. Jackpot winners can choose to receive the winnings in 30 yearly payments or as a one-time lump-sum payment. Both are subject to federal and jurisdictional taxes.

If players don’t match all six numbers, there are still eight other ways they can win a monetary prize with a combination of matching some white ball numbers alone, or with the red Powerball number visualized here.

People also have the option to add a “Power Play” for $1 per play line. This can multiply non-jackpot prizes by 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10 times. The multiplier amount is drawn and announced during the Powerball drawing. For example, 10 lucky winners on Monday won $1 million prizes each for matching five of the white ball numbers.

If there are no grand prize winners, the prize will continue to increase.

How many Powerball grand prize winners have there been this year?

Four lucky grand prize winners have won big so far in 2025: