- - Powerball jackpot climbs to $1.5 billion after no Wednesday winner

Toni Odejimi, CNNDecember 18, 2025 at 1:53 AM

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A customer fills out a Powerball lottery ticket at a convenience store in Mundelein, Illinois, on Monday. - Nam Y. Huh/AP

The Powerball jackpot rose to an estimated $1.5 billion after nobody held the grand prize ticket in Wednesday’s drawing.

Wednesday night’s winning numbers were 25, 33, 53, 62, 66, and red powerball 17, with a Power Play multiplier of 4.

While no one won the grand prize jackpot, two lucky winners each won $2 million, according to the Powerball website. Those winning tickets were sold in Arizona and Massachusetts.

Six lucky winners also each won $1 million, the website said. Three of those tickets were sold in New York, and one each in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

The jackpot is the second largest of the year and the sixth highest in the lottery game’s history, according to the Multi-State Lottery Association. It’s been steadily crawling up in value to rival the largest jackpot this year, September’s $1.787 billion jackpot, split between winners in Texas and Missouri.

The winner of the jackpot can choose between two payment options: a lump sum or one upfront payment followed by 29 escalating installment, which lotteries offer through an annuitized prize plan that takes interest into account.

The lump sum is paid to winners at once from the money in the jackpot pool, which is typically lower than the annuitized value. For this jackpot, it is now an estimated $686.5 million; nearly half of the annuitized amount often advertised on billboards.

Both figures are before taxes, though some states don’t tax lottery winnings. Three of these states, California, Texas and Florida, have had some of the largest jackpot earnings in US lottery history.

The odds of winning the Powerball’s jackpot is 1 out of 292.2 million, though the odds are better for smaller cash prizes, some as low as $4.

Wednesday marked the 44th drawing in the series – a game record for the most drawings in a jackpot cycle, according to Powerball.

The Powerball drawings are held every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET.

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