Monday’s Powerball jackpot has reached a mind-boggling $1.9 billion.
The record jackpot comes after 41 consecutive Powerball drawings without a winner. The only other Powerball drawing with as many no-win drawings was last October, when a California player won after 41 drawings.
“Like the rest of America, and the world, I think we’re all eager to find out when this historic jackpot will eventually be won,” said the chairman of the Powerball Product Group in a statement Monday.
Powerball will pay the eventual jackpot winner with either a lump sum of $929.1 million or 30 equal payments of around $63 million over a 29-year period. Powerball has always offered an annuity payment option for its winners.
According to their statistics, no Powerball winner since 2014 has chosen this option, instead accepting the cash prize.
Shark Tank celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary told CNBC in a 2019 interview that he advises lottery winners who choose the lump sum to do so wisely, warning them not to become another “horror story” who “strike[s] gold, only to lose it all within a year or two.”
The odds of winning all six drawn numbers are 1 in 292.2 million.
The drawing will be held on Monday at 10:59 p.m. ET.