The jackpot for Wednesday night’s Powerball drawing is over $300 million.
With no grand prize winners since August 1st, the jackpot now sits at $301 million dollars – or just over $191 million dollars if taken as a lump sum cash payment.
That’s the largest since three winners split a $564 million prize last February. The biggest Powerball jackpot to date was a $590.5 million prize won by a Florida woman in May 2013.
Wednesday evening’s drawing is also one of the last before Powerball rules change to make it harder to match all 5 numbers drawn and the Powerball to win the jackpot.
Under the new rules, players will choose their first five numbers from a set of 69, up from the current 59, and their Powerball from a pool of 26 numbers, down from the current 35.
The new rules go into effect after Saturday’s drawing – and will change the odds of winning the top prize from 1 in 175 million to 1 in about 292 million. With fewer winners of that top prize, larger jackpots like Wednesday night’s $301 million prize are expected to become more common.
The new rules are also designed to make winning smaller prizes more likely, while the game's third prize is being increased from $10,000 to $50,000 and more options are being added to multiply the amount of lower prizes won.
