A single ticket bought in Cabot, Arkansas, matched every number in Wednesday’s Christmas Eve Powerball drawing, capturing a $1.817 billion jackpot — the second-largest lottery prize in U.S. history.
The moment and the numbers
The winning combination drawn Dec. 24 was 4, 25, 31, 52 and 59, with a Powerball of 19. Final ticket sales pushed the advertised annuity to $1.817 billion; the upfront lump-sum cash option is about $834.9 million before taxes, Powerball officials say (powerball.com).
Officials have not publicly identified the winner. The ticket was sold at a Murphy USA station in Cabot, a suburb northeast of Little Rock. The store was closed for the holiday, and calls to the location went unanswered on Thursday, according to state lottery statements.
Claiming, privacy and process
A jackpot of this size triggers a predictable flurry of attention — from the store clerk who sold the ticket to financial advisers circling the eventual winner. How and when the claimant’s identity becomes public, however, depends on the rules and procedures of the state lottery and the winner’s own choices. The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery provides guidance for winners on claiming large prizes and adviser use; a winner often takes time to assemble legal, tax and financial counsel before stepping into the spotlight (alottery.com).
Winners can generally choose between the annuity option — a series of payments over 30 years that rises slightly each year — or the lump-sum cash payment. Both figures are quoted before federal and state taxes.
Not just one payday — other winners, too
While one ticket took the top prize, dozens of other players walked away with significant money from the same drawing. Powerball reported multiple secondary winners: eight tickets matched the five white balls (a Match 5 prize that typically pays $1 million), and numerous tickets collected $50,000 or $100,000 prizes. In New Jersey alone, a cluster of players captured $50,000 and $100,000 prizes, and two players won Double Play $50,000 prizes in a separate drawing.
Those smaller wins are a reminder that even in a draw dominated by a headline-grabbing jackpot, many people still pocket life-changing — if smaller — sums.
Odds, history and how we got here
Powerball’s odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, a long shot that helps fuel massive rollovers when nobody hits all six numbers. This prize ended a streak of dozens of drawings without a top-prize winner; the previous jackpot hit with co-winners in Missouri and Texas in September, when two tickets split a $1.787 billion top prize.
The record remains the $2.04 billion Powerball ticket sold in Altadena, California, in 2022. Still, the Arkansas ticket sits near the top of an increasingly familiar list of billion-dollar American jackpots — a sign of how big prizes have become in the past decade.
If you’re curious about official rules, payouts and deadlines for claiming a prize in Arkansas, the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery site has the details, and Powerball’s website posts official drawing results and prize breakdowns (powerball.com, alottery.com).
This win will set off the usual ripple effects: a boon to the store that sold the ticket, attention from local and national media, and, eventually, the paperwork and planning that accompany a newly minted billionaire.
No one knows yet whether the winner will step forward quickly, hire a team of advisers or quietly collect the prize and disappear from public view. For now, a small town outside Little Rock is living with the delicious, wild possibility that someone there just had their life rewritten by five white balls and a red one.