Powerball Jackpot Hits $301M Before New Rules Kick In

The odds of being dealt a natural royal flush are 1 in 649,740, a more likely probability than winning Wednesday’s $301 million Powerball jackpot — a 1 in 175,223,510 shot.

Your chances increase significantly to 1 in 5,153,632 if you are willing to settle for the $1 million prize.

Wednesday’s pot is the third biggest so far in 2015. In February, three tickets in North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Texas matched all six numbers to win the $564.1 million jackpot, the fifth largest prize in U.S. history, and the third-largest Powerball.

The biggest Powerball jackpot ever was $590.5 million in May, 2013. That's still shy of the record $656 million Mega Millions jackpot drawn in March, 2012.

There are only two drawings left before a change in Powerball rules will make it much harder to win big. After Sunday, the chances of winning the jackpot go down, but the size of smaller cash prizes goes up.

Powerball is increasing the number of white balls to 69 and dropping the number of red balls to 26. The odds of hitting the jackpot increase from 1 in 175 million to 1 in 292 million.

The $301 million Powerball jackpot represents the nominal dollar value a winner is projected to receive pretax, if you are the sole winner and agree to take your winnings in 30 payments over 29 years. Should the winner elect to take it all in a lump sum up front, the winnings decrease to $191.4 million, pretax.

The latest jackpot has been accumulating since Aug. 1 when a retiree from Southern California really brought home the bacon. Los Angeles resident Willie Nelson purchased the winning $110 million jackpot ticket at a local Choice Market grocery store while picking up some cured meat at the request of his wife.

"I love Choice Market because they have the thick slab bacon with the rind on it," Nelson told Powerball officials. "I bought the bacon and then went back to my car and remembered I had an old Lottery ticket to check, so I got it and went back in."

It was not a winner.

"So then, I went back to my car again, but something inside of me told me to buy another ticket so I went back in a third time and bought five Quick Picks for the Powerball draw that night," Nelson said of his winning tickets.

Moral of the story-- like the lottery slogan goes-- 'Hey, you never know.'

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