Every few months, another national lottery jackpot approaches record (or near-record) territory.
A single ticket sold in Florida won Tuesday’s $1.58 billion Mega Millions jackpot, which was the third-largest in U.S. history.
Both nationwide games, Powerball and Mega Millions, have seen their jackpots land in the Top 10 list five times in the past two years.
Billion-dollar payouts used to be extremely rare. Not anymore.
So what has changed?
In 2015, Powerball increased the number of white balls from 59 to 69 and shrunk the number of red balls from 35 to 26. This improved your odds of winning something, but lowered your odds of winning the jackpot from 1-in-175-million to 1-in-292-million, according to NerdWallet.
In 2017, Mega Millions raised its ticket price from $1 to $2 which naturally increased the jackpots.
It also added ten numbers to the Mega Ball (now numbered 1-25) while subtracting just five white balls (now numbered 1-70) which, much like Powerball, increased your odds of winning some cash, but decreased your odds of hitting the jackpot.
Here is a look at the 10 largest U.S. jackpots that have been won where those winning tickets were sold:
1. $2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 8, 2022 (one ticket, from Altadena, California)
2. $1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016 (three tickets, from California, Florida, Tennessee)
3. $1.58 billion, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023 (one ticket, from Florida)
4. $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018 (one ticket, from South Carolina)
5. $1.35 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023 (one ticket, from Maine)
6. $1.337 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022 (one ticket, from Illinois)
7. $1.08 billion, Powerball, July 19, 2023 (one ticket, from Los Angeles, California)
8. $1.05 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 22, 2021 (one ticket, from Michigan)
9. $768.4 million, Powerball, March 27, 2019 (one ticket, from Wisconsin)
10. $758.7 million, Powerball, Aug. 23, 2017 (one ticket, from Massachusetts)
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
