Powerball Drawing Tonight: $793 Million at 10:59 P.M. — the Night Before Election Day
No ticket matched all six numbers on Halloween, so Monday's drawing is worth an estimated $793 million — the 35th drawing since the last jackpot was hit, and it lands the night before New York votes.
Tonight's drawing is the big one before the bigger one. The Powerball jackpot for Monday night stands at an estimated $793 million, with a cash option of $339.9 million, after no ticket matched all six numbers in Saturday's Halloween drawing — and the balls drop at 10:59 p.m. Eastern, hours before New York City's polls open.
Saturday's numbers were 2, 4, 18, 50 and 56, with the red Powerball 20 and a Power Play multiplier of 3x. Nobody matched them all, and the near-miss tier was empty too: the Multi-State Lottery Association said no ticket sold matched five numbers without the Powerball either. Saturday's prize had been advertised at $760 million and climbed to $770 million on late sales by drawing time — and still rolled. At $793 million, tonight's jackpot passes the $768.4 million Wisconsin prize that stands tenth on the all-time list.
The roll itself is now the streak to watch. Nobody has won the Powerball jackpot since August 12, when a ticket sold in Quincy, Illinois hit for $1.04 billion; Monday is the 35th drawing since then. A ticket costs $2, the odds of the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, and a winner chooses between the $793 million paid as an annuity and the $339.9 million cash option, both before taxes.
The practical warning is the deadline, and it is not the drawing time: ticket-sale cutoffs vary by jurisdiction and can close before 10:59 p.m., so a ticket bought at the last minute is a ticket that may not exist. Powerball is sold by the New York Lottery at retailers across the five boroughs, and drawings run every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. This desk will carry tonight's winning numbers in the Tuesday file — by then, the city will have a second set of numbers on its mind: the election results.
