A math professor has weighed in on two popular Powerball strategies ahead of Monday’s draw, which features a jackpot of $905 million, the 16th-largest lottery prize in American history.
Monday’s jackpot is the eighth-largest Powerball prize since the Powerball game launched in 1992, though Mega Millions has seen eight larger jackpots.
The Powerball jackpot reached the massive sum after 42 consecutive drawings without a single ticket matching all six numbers. Ticket sales for Monday night’s draw end at 10 p.m. ET, with the official drawing set for 10:59 p.m.
Ahead of the historic draw, USC mathematics Professor Emeritus Ken Alexander offered some advice to lottery players who hope to land the jackpot.
He first debunked a strategy used by some players to try to up their chances of winning.
Purchasing tickets at a retail location where large jackpot tickets were previously sold does not improve a player’s chance of winning, according to Alexander.
“The chance that a given place will sell a winning lottery ticket is just related to how many tickets they sell,” Alexander told City News Service.
However, players seeking a better chance of avoiding sharing a jackpot should choose numbers that are selected less frequently, Alexander advised.
Because participants often choose birth dates as their numbers, figures higher than 31 are played less often, Alexander noted.
Odds of winning Monday’s Powerball jackpot
The Powerball jackpot was last won on May 2, when two tickets in Florida and Texas split a $20 million jackpot.
The odds of matching all five numbers, along with the Powerball number, stand at 1 in 292.2 million, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association, which conducts the game. Meanwhile, the overall chance of winning any prize is 1 in 24.9.
Powerball tickets cost $2 per play and are sold in 45 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as the United Kingdom since July 21.
If a player from a participating U.S. lottery wins the jackpot, they can choose to receive their prize as an annuity, paid in 30 graduated payments over 29 years, or as a lump-sum payment. Both prize options are before taxes.
The top 10 Powerball jackpots in history include:
- $2.04 Billion – Nov. 7, 2022 – CA
- $1.817 Billion – Dec. 24, 2025 – AR
- $1.787 Billion – Sept. 6, 2025 – MO, TX
- $1.765 Billion – Oct. 11, 2023 – CA
- $1.586 Billion – Jan. 13, 2016 – CA, FL, TN
- $1.326 Billion – April 6, 2024 – OR
- $1.08 Billion – July 19, 2023 – CA
- $905 Million (est.) – Aug. 10, 2026
- $842.4 Million – Jan. 1, 2024 – MI
- $768.4 Million – March 27, 2019 – WI
Powerball jackpot winners so far in 2026 include:
- Jan. 21, 2026 – $209.3 Million – North Carolina
- March 2, 2026 – $250.8 Million – Arkansas
- April 6, 2026 – $230.8 Million – Delaware
- April 29, 2026 – $143 Million – Indiana, Kansas
- May 2, 2026 – $20 Million – Florida, Texas