Winning ticket for $1 billion Powerball jackpot was sold in Illinois

Winning ticket for $1 billion Powerball jackpot was sold in Illinois 1 of 3 | Powerball lottery tickets are sold at a convenience store, Dec. 22, 2025, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File) 2 of 3 | A person walks past a sign displaying the jackpot payout for Powerball outside a convenience store, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura) 3 of 3 | A billboard displays the estimated Powerball jackpot in Houston, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis) By DAVE COLLINS Updated 3:34 PM MESZ, August 13, 2026 Add AP News on Google Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Share Share Facebook Copy Link copied Print Email X LinkedIn Bluesky Flipboard Pinterest Reddit A Powerball ticket sold at a gas station in western Illinois was the sole winner of the $1 billion jackpot, ending a three-month drought without a top-prize victor. The ticket that won the jackpot Wednesday night was purchased at a Hy-Vee station in Quincy, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of the state capital of Springfield along the Missouri border, Illinois Lottery officials said. The winning numbers were 4-26-66-67-69 with the Powerball number of 9. It wasn’t immediately clear if the winner has come forward yet. The prize comes in the form of either an annuity of $1 billion paid over 29 years or a lump-sum payment of $450.5 million. Winners almost always take the lump sum. It was the first Powerball jackpot won since May 2, when the top prize was $20 million, and the first since ticket sales began in the United Kingdom last month. At $2 per play, the odds of winning the jackpot are one in 292 million. The $1.04 billion grand prize was the eighth-largest in Powerball history, game organizers said. Another lottery game, Mega Millions has also had a $1 billion jackpot winner. “Congratulations to our newest Powerball jackpot winner in Illinois,” Stephen Durrell, chair of the Powerball Product Group and executive director of the Kansas Lottery, said in a statement. “For more than three decades, Powerball has shown that a winning ticket can be sold anywhere the game is played, giving every $2 ticket the chance to change not only a winner’s life, but generations to come.” Four tickets sold for Wednesday’s drawing — in Arizona, California, Florida and North Carolina — hit five of the numbers but missed the Powerball number. They were worth $1 million apiece. A ticket sold in Massachusetts also matched all the numbers except the Powerball number, but won $2 million because of the “Power Play” multiplier option costing an extra $1 per play. Powerball ticket sales begin Tuesday in the United Kingdom 1 MIN READ How the lighthearted social media trend of ‘teen takeovers’ took a serious turn 1 MIN READ At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science 1 MIN READ More than 3 million tickets won lesser cash prizes. The Powerball jackpot resets to $20 million for the next drawing on Saturday. The record lottery jackpot still stands at just over $2 billion, won with a Powerball ticket purchased in California in 2022.