Powerball Winning Numbers For 5/15 Drawing: $250M Jackpot

The Powerball jackpot on the line Wednesday, May 15, has reached an estimated $250 million. The one-time cash payout for tonight's Powerball drawing will be $156.3 million.

The winning Powerball numbers are drawn every Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. Eastern time, with Powerball results usually posted within five minutes.

In every drawing, lottery officials say the odds of winning a prize of any value are 1 in 24.9.

The winning Powerball numbers for Wednesday, May 15, are 7, 17, 33, 61, 68 and the Powerball is 4.

Powerball tickets cost $2 each. In most states, ticket sales stop at least one hour before the drawing, but a state may end sales earlier, such as Illinois, where sales end three hours before the drawing. In Maryland and New Jersey, ticket sales end at 9:59 p.m.; in Virginia, they close at 10 p.m.

The largest Powerball jackpot in history was $1.586 billion, which was shared by winners in California, Florida and Tennessee in January 2016.

These are the five largest Powerball jackpots in history:

• $1.586 billion, Jan. 13, 2016
• $768.4 million, March 27, 2019
• $758.7 million, Aug. 23, 2017
• $688 million, Oct. 27, 2018
• $590.5 million, May 18, 2013

The odds of picking the correct Powerball grand prize numbers are about 1 in 292 million, which stays the same regardless of the number of players or size of the jackpot.

Players have a better chance of winning the Powerball jackpot if they let the computer select their numbers, according to lottery officials — about 75 percent of winning tickets over the years had electronically generated numbers.

The smallest prize is $4, and that's what players win if they match only the Powerball.

For matching all numbers, winners can choose either to have the full jackpot amount paid out in 30 installments over 29 years, or they can take one lump sum payment that is smaller than the actual total.