DLNews Staff

America vs. Math, Round 44

In a saga that now feels longer than summer in Palm Springs, the Powerball jackpot has once again slipped through America’s fingers and grown even larger, swelling to a sun-blistering $1.5 billion after Wednesday night’s drawing produced no grand prize winner. The numbers—25, 33, 53, 62, and 66, with the Powerball 17—made their official appearance, politely waved to the crowd, and then walked right past millions of hopeful tickets without stopping.

Here in the Coachella Valley, the reaction has been predictably dramatic. Convenience stores from Palm Springs to Indio reported steady lines of dreamers clutching tickets, discussing yacht names they do not yet need, and calculating how quickly they could relocate to somewhere with an ocean view and no HOA meetings. Yet despite the optimism and the ritualistic ticket-buying, there were no reported big winners in Palm Springs or the greater Coachella Valley from this drawing. The desert, it seems, remains rich in sunshine but still short on freshly minted billionaires.

Nationally, a few players did come tantalizingly close. Eight tickets matched five of the six numbers but missed the Powerball by a single digit. Two of those tickets, sold in Arizona and Massachusetts, were worth $2 million thanks to the Power Play option, while tickets sold in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee each walked away with a respectable $1 million. These winners now enjoy the unique emotional cocktail of being thrilled, grateful, and mildly tormented by what might have been.

Wednesday’s drawing marked the 44th consecutive Powerball drawing without a jackpot winner, the longest dry spell since the game began in 1992. The last time someone managed to beat the odds was Sept. 6, when winning tickets sold in Missouri and Texas split a $1.787 billion prize, the second-largest jackpot in U.S. history. Since then, the jackpot has continued to grow like a legend, fueled by dashed hopes and fresh ticket sales.

This is only the second time Powerball has delivered back-to-back billion-dollar jackpots, a feat last accomplished in 2023. The odds, however, remain unmoved by human enthusiasm. Matching all five numbers plus the Powerball carries a 1 in 292.2 million chance, while the odds of winning any prize stand at 1 in 24.9.

Played across 45 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, Powerball now marches toward its next drawing with $1.5 billion on the line. In the Coachella Valley, the tickets will keep selling, the dreams will keep growing, and math will once again brace itself for another round against America’s unshakable belief that this time, somehow, it could really be them.