Tens of millions of Americans play the lottery each year, hoping they can hit the big jackpot. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of people that play the lottery aren’t going to see massive windfalls and lottery winnings if they win anything.
For example, there’s a 91.9% chance that your Powerball ticket will net you less than $5.
An 8% chance of winning more than $5 isn’t all that bad when you compare it to the odds of winning the lottery jackpot.
You only have a 1 in 302,575,350 chance of hitting the Mega Millions jackpot. The chances of winning will only slightly improve if you go for a Powerball jackpot instead, as it’s a 1 in 292,201,338 chance.
Despite the odds, Americans spend close to $86 a month on lottery tickets. The rationality is that you only have to get lucky once to become a millionaire overnight. Many people have won lottery games but never believed it could happen to them.
You have a statistical chance to hit the next jackpot as long as you play.
Which State Has the Most Lottery Winners?
It’s hard to say how many people win the lottery each year. For starters, each state has specific laws for publicly releasing a lottery winner's information. Some states legally require a lottery winner to be named when claiming their prize. But the majority of states will allow winners to remain anonymous.
Another issue is that there are way more lottery winners than you would probably think.
For instance, the Tuesday, July 26, 2022, Mega Millions drew 6.7 million winning tickets. None of these tickets won the grand prize, and only nine of them won awards over $1 million. However, each of these players technically won the lottery, had winning numbers, and will be included in the annual lottery statistics.
Talking about lottery winners is much easier if you only consider jackpot winners. The information is much more readily available and is often categorized by state.
As a result, we can list the states with the most winners, the states with the least winners, and the top prizes won.
States With the Most Winners
You might think the states with the most lottery prize payouts would have the highest populations. The more people who play the lottery, the more likely to field a winner, right? On the other hand, you might think the answer would be based on the state that buys the most Powerball or Mega Millions tickets.
In reality, neither of these factors seems to matter regarding jackpot winners.
For example, Florida has a population of roughly 22 million people. In 2021, Floridians spent more than $9 billion on lottery tickets (more than any other state in the U.S.). To date, there have only been 18 total jackpot winners in Florida.
Also, Indiana has a population that’s just under seven million. In 2021, the Hoosier State spent a little more than $1.7 billion on lottery tickets (18th highest in the U.S.). To date, there have been 41 total jackpot winners from Indiana.
The top five states with the most jackpot winners are:
- New York: 53
- California: 46
- Indiana: 41
- New Jersey: 35
- Missouri: 33
States With the Fewest Winners
The lottery is available in 45 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Technically, the states with the fewest winners would be Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah, and Guam, as these locations don’t allow the lottery. However, there’s a difference between being unable to play and losing when you do.
There are currently five states and one territory that has yet to field a jackpot winner.
Mississippi is one of these states, but it’s not surprising for it to make this list. The lottery has only been available in Mississippi for a few years. Mississippi is the most recent state to legalize the lottery, and the first tickets were sold in 2019.
The rest of the list doesn’t have the same justification and is currently winless in the lottery:
- Maine
- Mississippi
- North Dakota
- Vermont
- Wyoming
- U.S. Virgin Islands
States With the Highest Jackpots
The most appealing stat people want to see when discussing the lottery is how much money is in the jackpot. The lotteries in the last decade have shattered previous records. The winners of these jackpots could have enough money to live comfortably for a hundred lifetimes.
Interestingly, the highest jackpots didn’t come from states with the most winners.
A few of these states have only had a handful of winners since the lottery drawings started. You don’t have to win the lottery multiple times to make a profit when you have jackpots as high as recent ones.
These are the five states that have claimed the highest jackpots in American history:
- South Carolina: $1.537 billion in October 2018
- Illinois: $1.33 billion in July 2022
- Michigan: $1.05 billion in January 2021
- Wisconsin: $768.4 million in April 2019
- Massachusetts: $758.7 million in August 2017
Complete List of Winners
Here is the complete list of American lottery winners by state and top prize claimed:
- Arizona: 16 jackpot winners (14 Powerball and 2 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $410 million.
- Arkansas: 2 jackpot winners (1 Powerball and 1 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $177 million.
- California: 46 jackpot winners (11 Powerball and 35 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $699.8 million.
- Colorado; 3 jackpot winners (3 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $133 million.
- Connecticut: 9 jackpot winners (9 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $254.2 million.
- Delaware: 10 jackpot winners (10 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $121 million.
- Florida: 18 jackpot winners (16 Powerball and 2 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $590.5 million.
- Georgia: 22 jackpot winners (6 Powerball and 16 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $648 million.
- Idaho: 6 jackpot winners (5 Powerball and 1 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $220.3 million.
- Illinois: 16 jackpot winners (2 Powerball and 14 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $1.33 billion.
- Indiana: 41 jackpot winners (39 Powerball and 2 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $536 million.
- Iowa: 9 jackpot winners (9 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $343.9 million.
- Kansas: 12 jackpot winners (11 Powerball and 1 Mega Millions with a top prize of $218.6 million.
- Kentucky: 18 jackpot winners (18 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $128.6 million.
- Louisiana: 17 jackpot winners (17 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $191 million.
- Maine: No Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot winners to date, but a Lotta America player once won $3.1 million.
- Maryland: 14 jackpot winners (3 Powerball and 11 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $731.1 million.
- Massachusetts: 9 jackpot winners (6 Powerball and 3 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $758.7 million.
- Michigan: 23 jackpot winners (5 Powerball and 18 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $1.05 billion.
- Minnesota: 23 jackpot winners (22 Powerball and 1 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $229 million.
- Mississippi: No Powerball or Mega Million jackpot winners to date, but a Match 5 player once won $524,000.
- Missouri: 33 jackpot winners (31 Powerball and 2 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $192.4 million
- Montana: 4 jackpot winners (4 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $48.5 million.
- Nebraska: 10 jackpot winners (10 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $365 million.
- New Hampshire: 12 jackpot winners (11 Powerball and 1 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $559.7 million.
- New Jersey: 35 jackpot winners (11 Powerball and 24 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $553 million.
- New Mexico: 5 jackpot winners (5 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $206.9 million.
- New York: 53 jackpot winners (12 Powerball and 41 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $432 million.
- North Carolina: 8 jackpot winners (6 Powerball and 2 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $344.6 million.
- North Dakota: No Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot winners to date, but a Mega Millions player once won $3 million.
- Ohio: 23 jackpot winners (3 Powerball and 20 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $372 million.
- Oklahoma: 4 jackpot winners (4 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $105.8 million.
- Oregon: 5 jackpot winners (5 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $340 million.
- Pennsylvania: 22 jackpot winners (19 Powerball and 3 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $516 million.
- Puerto Rico: 2 jackpot winners (2 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $127 million.
- Rhode Island: 9 jackpot winners (8 Powerball and 1 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $336.4 million.
- South Carolina: 7 jackpot winners (6 Powerball and 1 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $1.537 billion.
- South Dakota: 3 jackpot winners (3 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $232.1 million.
- Tennessee: 9 jackpot winners (7 Powerball and 2 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $420.9 million.
- Texas: 13 jackpot winners (2 Powerball and 13 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $227 million.
- U.S. Virgin Islands: No Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot winners to date, but a Powerball player once won $2 million.
- Vermont: No Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot winners to date, but a Megabucks player once won $12.5 million.
- Virginia: 11 jackpot winners (2 Powerball and 9 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $239 million.
- Washington: 6 jackpot winners (1 Powerball and 5 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $190 million.
- Washington, D.C.: 11 jackpot winners (11 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $144 million.
- West Virginia: 9 jackpot winners (9 Powerball and 0 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $314.9 million.
- Wisconsin: 19 jackpot winners (19 Powerball and 1 Mega Millions) with a top prize of $768.4 million.
- Wyoming: No Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot winners to date, but a Mega Millions player once won $5 million.
Join the List of Yotta Winners Instead
The odds of winning the Powerball or Mega Millions jackpot are microscopic at best. There have barely been one hundred jackpot winners for either lottery despite millions of players and decades of drawings.
It can be easy to get tempted by a ten-figure jackpot. But the harsh reality is that you’re practically guaranteed to lose.
There isn’t much to gain by throwing your money away and chasing a billion-dollar jackpot. Instead, you could deposit that money into a Yotta account and play for free.
The Yotta weekly drawing is simple. You receive one ticket for every $25 in your Yotta account and one ticket for every $20 in your Crypto Bucket. A new number will be drawn each night of the week at 9 PM EST. The last number (the Yotta Ball) gets drawn on Sunday night.
You’ll win prizes based on how many numbers match the ones on your various tickets. The awards range from one cent to several dollars per ticket, from several thousand in total to $1 million.
There has already been more than $11 million and a few Teslas awarded to winners. The highest prize so far has been $500,000, a new record for prize-linked savings accounts in the U.S.
The key to Yotta is that you don’t have to win to break even. The majority of Powerball and Mega Millions players won’t generate a profit. Since you won’t be spending any money to enter, anything you win in the drawing is automatically a profit.
The worst-case scenario is that you’ll only break even by the end of a drawing. Powerball and Mega Millions don’t offer anything close to a scenario as good as that.
For a fresh way to make money on your savings, consider trying Yotta. Often described by users as a no-lose lottery, Yotta offers banking services and sweepstakes.
Visit Yotta today to make your first deposit and get started. Why spend money playing a virtually impossible lottery to win when you can play the Yotta sweepstakes for free?
