The Biggest Lottery Jackpots in History
For most of lottery history, a $100 million jackpot was front-page news. Then the numbers exploded. Billion-dollar jackpots went from unthinkable to routine in less than a decade, and the record now stands above $2 billion. Here are the biggest jackpots ever won, and the reasons they keep growing.
Record Jackpots Are Designed, Not Lucky
It's tempting to think record jackpots happen when luck runs cold for a long time. In a sense they do: nobody wins for many draws in a row. But that long drought is built into the game.
When lotteries make jackpot odds longer, fewer tickets win the top prize, so the jackpot rolls over more often and grows bigger. Bigger jackpots attract more ticket sales, which grow the jackpot even faster.
We call this the rollover engine: the self-reinforcing loop where longer odds create longer jackpot runs, and bigger jackpots create more sales. Nearly every jackpot on this list is a product of the rollover engine.
The Biggest U.S. Jackpots
These are among the largest jackpots in U.S. lottery history, listed by advertised annuity value. Advertised jackpots assume the winner chooses the annuity; the lump-sum cash option is significantly smaller.
| Jackpot | Game | Draw date | Where the winning ticket(s) sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2.04 billion | Powerball | November 7, 2022 | California |
| $1.787 billion | Powerball | September 6, 2025 | Missouri and Texas |
| $1.765 billion | Powerball | October 11, 2023 | California |
| $1.602 billion | Mega Millions | August 8, 2023 | Florida |
| $1.586 billion | Powerball | January 13, 2016 | California, Florida, and Tennessee |
| $1.537 billion | Mega Millions | October 23, 2018 | South Carolina |
| $1.348 billion | Mega Millions | January 13, 2023 | Maine |
| $1.337 billion | Mega Millions | July 29, 2022 | Illinois |
| $1.326 billion | Powerball | April 6, 2024 | Oregon |
| $1.269 billion | Mega Millions | December 27, 2024 | California |
Record lists change whenever a new jackpot is won. Check the official Powerball and Mega Millions websites for the latest rankings.
The Stories Behind the Biggest Wins
$2.04 billion Powerball (2022)
The largest lottery jackpot in history was won with a single ticket sold at Joe's Service Center in Altadena, California. The draw was delayed by several hours due to a technical issue with processing sales data, which only added to the suspense. The winner chose the lump-sum cash option.
$1.586 billion Powerball (2016)
This was the first jackpot in the world to cross $1 billion. It was split among three tickets sold in Chino Hills, California; Melbourne Beach, Florida; and Munford, Tennessee. It came just months after Powerball changed its format in October 2015, making jackpot odds longer — the rollover engine in action.
$1.537 billion Mega Millions (2018)
Won with a single ticket in Simpsonville, South Carolina, this jackpot is famous for its winner staying anonymous. South Carolina is one of the states that allows lottery winners to keep their identities private.
$1.602 billion Mega Millions (2023)
The largest Mega Millions jackpot on record was won on a single ticket sold at a Publix supermarket in Neptune Beach, Florida.
Biggest Jackpots Outside the U.S.
Many international lotteries cap their jackpots or use different prize structures, so they rarely reach U.S. sizes. They still produce enormous wins.
- EuroMillions has a jackpot cap of €250 million. Once the jackpot reaches the cap, extra money rolls down to lower prize tiers after a set number of draws. Several players have won capped jackpots.
- The UK's largest-ever lottery win is a £195 million EuroMillions jackpot won by a single UK ticket in July 2022.
- Spain's Christmas lottery, El Gordo, isn't built around a single giant jackpot. Instead, it distributes a prize pool worth billions of euros among many tickets, and because tickets are often shared, a single winning number can make an entire town wealthy.
Why Jackpots Keep Getting Bigger
Economists Charles Clotfelter and Philip Cook, whose 1989 book Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America remains a landmark study of lotteries, documented how strongly lottery sales respond to the size of the advertised jackpot. That relationship is the fuel behind today's records. Several factors have pushed jackpots into the billions:
- Longer odds. Format changes like Powerball's 2015 update made jackpots harder to win.
- Higher ticket prices. Powerball went to $2 in 2012, and Mega Millions moved to $5 in April 2025, feeding more money into prize pools per ticket.
- More participating states. Both games are sold across dozens of U.S. jurisdictions.
- Interest rates. Advertised annuity jackpots depend on interest rates used to fund payments, so higher rates can make jackpots look larger.
- Jackpot fever. Media coverage of huge jackpots drives many occasional players to buy tickets.
We call that last effect headline buying: a surge in ticket sales driven not by regular players but by people who only play when the jackpot becomes a news story.
Annuity vs. Cash: The Real Size of a Record
The advertised jackpot is the annuity value, paid over 30 payments across 29 years. The lump-sum cash option is typically a little under half of the advertised figure, depending on interest rates. Taxes then reduce the amount further.
For example, the $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot had a cash value of just under $1 billion before taxes. That's still an unimaginable sum — but a very different number from the headline.
For more, read How Lottery Payouts Work: Lump Sum vs. Annuity.
Quick Answers
What is the biggest lottery jackpot ever won?
The largest lottery jackpot ever won is the $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot from the November 7, 2022 drawing. It was won by a single ticket sold in Altadena, California. The winner chose the lump-sum cash option, which was just under $1 billion before taxes.
What was the first billion-dollar lottery jackpot?
The first lottery jackpot to exceed $1 billion was the $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot from January 13, 2016. It was split among three winning tickets sold in California, Florida, and Tennessee, a few months after Powerball changed its format to make jackpots harder to win.
Why are lottery jackpots so big now?
Lotteries have made jackpot odds longer, which causes more rollovers, while ticket prices and the number of participating states have risen. Huge jackpots also attract media attention and a wave of occasional players, which pushes jackpots higher still. Interest rates affect the advertised annuity value too.
Where Jackpot Records Are Heading
Billion-dollar jackpots now arrive every year or two. Our prediction: a $3 billion jackpot is likely within the next decade, driven by higher ticket prices and the rollover engine, and lotteries will increasingly debate jackpot caps or rolldown rules like EuroMillions uses, to balance record-breaking headlines against the risk of players tuning out between them.
For the math behind these odds, read What Are the Odds of Winning the Lottery?.