Dozens win $1M or more in rare Powerball drawing: Did ticket layout have an impact?
(NEXSTAR) – The Powerball jackpot won on Wednesday was worth only about $143.4 million, a prize amount that doesn’t even rank in the top 100 pots ever won, but last night’s drawing may have been one of the biggest the draw game has ever seen.
Two tickets, one each sold in Indiana and Kansas, will split the jackpot, the fourth won this year. It’s Indiana’s first Powerball jackpot since 2017, and Kansas’ first since 2022.
If you didn’t have the matching numbers – 3, 19, 35, 51, 67, and Powerball 15 – don’t throw away your ticket just yet.
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Nearly 90 tickets, sold across 20 states, matched five of the above numbers to secure prizes of at least $1 million. Almost one-third of those winners also opted for the Power Play feature, doubling their payout to $2 million.
For context, no tickets matched five of the six numbers drawn in the last two drawings. There were two tickets last week – one in Missouri on Monday and a ticket in Michigan on Wednesday – that matched five numbers for a $1 million prize. The last time more than one ticket achieved this feat in a single drawing was on April 18, when two tickets, one each in New York and Oregon, matched five numbers without the Power Play.
No ticket has won $2 million (matching five with the Power Play option), since April 6. Even then, the only other top-level prize was the jackpot, a $231 million payout for a ticket in Delaware.
Sixty-two tickets matched the five main numbers drawn on Wednesday. Both Indiana and New Jersey sold 14, for a total of 28, of those tickets. Another six tickets were sold in Louisiana, while Pennsylvania and Kansas each sold five. Wisconsin saw four winning tickets, Illinois had three, and Nebraska had two.
Single tickets worth $1 million were sold in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Oregon.
Meanwhile, another 27 tickets matched the same five numbers but had the option Power Play, worth 2X on Wednesday, to be worth $2 million. Indiana continued its major night, selling five of those tickets. Louisiana also had five, while New Jersey sold four. Three were sold in Oregon, while Pennsylvania and Wisconsin each had two. Single tickets were also sold in Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.
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While a representative for the Multi-State Lottery Association, which oversees Powerball, did not immediately respond to Nexstar’s request for comment, at least one user on Reddit pointed out that the layout of the Powerball ticket may offer some insight into how Wednesday proved to be so victorious.
On some Powerball slips – which can vary by state – the winning numbers align perfectly down the ticket. You can see that in the image below of a scan card from Pennsylvania: 3, 19, 35, 51, and 67 are in the same column.
The Powerball number, however, is not in the same column. It’s slightly off to the left, breaking the pattern that players may or may not have been following.
That theory doesn’t work everywhere, either. In Illinois, which produced three tickets that matched the five main numbers, they aren’t in the same column. They do, though, line up diagonally, starting with the 3 in the top row and traveling down and to the left.
EDITED: A customer fills out a Powerball lottery ticket at a convenience store in Mundelein, Ill., Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
The odds of the full winning numbers – 3, 19, 35, 51, 67, and Powerball 15 – being drawn last night were 1 in 292.2 million. The chance of a ticket matching five of those numbers is about 1 in 11.7 million, according to Powerball.
The odds of there ever being a repeat of Wednesday’s success? Seemingly slim.
If you want to try your hand at winning while playing Powerball, the next drawing is Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET. The lottery game is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
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