The number of U.S. Powerball and Mega Millions jackpot-winning tickets is about 13 to 16 a year in recent full years. The number of people is different because a ticket may belong to a group, trust, company or workplace pool.
If smaller prizes are included, the total reaches tens of millions of winning plays each year.
Lottery Wins at a Glance
| Type of lottery win | Approximate number per year | Important limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Powerball and Mega Millions jackpots | About 13 to 16 winning tickets in recent full years | One ticket may belong to several people or an organization |
| Any Powerball prize | About 58.3 million winning plays per year on historical average | This is not a count of unique people |
| All U.S. lottery games | No single official national total | State lotteries report results differently |
How Many Jackpot Winners Are There in the U.S.?
Powerball and Mega Millions usually produce about a dozen to 20 jackpot-winning tickets combined each year.
The official jackpot histories show:
| Year | Powerball jackpot-winning tickets | Mega Millions jackpot-winning tickets | Combined tickets |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 8 | 7 | 15 |
| 2023 | 5 | 11 | 16 |
| 2024 | 9 | 4 | 13 |
| 2025 | 7 | 6 | 13 |
These figures count jackpot-winning tickets listed by the games. They do not count unique people. Official records include partnerships, trusts, companies, workplace groups and split jackpots. Some winning tickets also remain unclaimed.
How Many People Win Any Lottery Prize?
The number is much higher when a win includes prizes such as $4, $10, $100 or a free ticket.
Powerball reported that it had created 1.75 billion prize winners during its first 30 years. Divided across 30 years, that equals about 58.3 million winning plays per year.
The figure counts winning plays, not verified individual people. A single person can hold several winning tickets and be counted more than once.
The historical Powerball figure also excludes:
- Mega Millions
- State draw games
- Scratch-off tickets
- Daily games such as Pick 3 and Pick 4
- Other multistate lottery games
The total number of winning lottery plays across the United States is therefore higher than the Powerball figure alone.
Why Is There No Exact Number of Lottery Winners?
There is no reliable national count of unique lottery winners because lottery organizations usually report winning tickets, prizes or claims rather than individual people.
The main problems are:
- One ticket can have several winners. A workplace pool or family group may share one prize.
- One person can win more than once. A player may hold several winning tickets.
- Trusts and companies can claim prizes. The named claimant may not show how many people receive the money.
- Some prizes are never claimed. An official history can list a winning ticket without a confirmed recipient.
- State lotteries report differently. The United States has no single national database covering every lottery winner.
So, for the United States, the clearest answer is about 13 to 16 Powerball and Mega Millions jackpot-winning tickets per year, but no published figure shows how many individual people those tickets represent. Including smaller prizes, the number of winning plays is in the tens of millions.
Worldwide, there is no dependable single total because lotteries operate separately and use different definitions of a winner.