Tonight’s Powerball lottery jackpot is expected to be the largest ever offered, six years after the last record-breaking prize was won.
Numbers will be drawn at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time for a prize rising as high as $1.9 billion, the New York Times reported. The previous record was set in 2016 for a $1.586 billion jackpot split between three winners across the country.
The drawing will follow 40 consecutive drawings with no winning ticket, which tied a record for no-winner drawings set last year, the New York Times reported. The most recent drawing was on Saturday.
If there is a winner tonight, they can take their nearly $2 billion in 30 gradually increasing annual payments, or take a smaller jackpot all at once in a lump sum of $929.1 million.
The unprecedented prize – and the nearly longest-ever wait for it to be won – is partially because of changes to Powerball rules that came in 2015, according to CNN. That year, the game was adjusted so that it was easier to win small prizes but even harder to win the jackpot, which made it more likely that larger jackpots would go unwon for longer.
The odds of winning the Powerball are one in 292 million under those new rules, according to CNN.
This huge Powerball follows another recent billion-dollar lottery: a Mega Millions ticket sold in Des Plains, Illinois won $1.34 billion over the summer, the Times reported.
Powerball tickets cost $2 and can be bought everywhere in the U.S. except Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah. Idaho lawmakers have considered banning the game in that state over fears of foreign participation, as reported by the Idaho Statesman.
The game is played by picking five numbers from one to 69 and a “Powerball” number from one to 26. Numbered balls are drawn, and the jackpot goes to the player who correctly picked all six numbers.
