Saturday Night Double-Header: $217M Powerball and $36.5M Lotto Texas Both Draw Tonight

Two jackpots. One night. And they're not even close to equal.

Tonight — Saturday, April 4, 2026 — both Powerball and Lotto Texas hold drawings within hours of each other. Powerball's headline number is $217 million. Lotto Texas is sitting at $36.5 million. Most people will glance at those numbers and grab the Powerball ticket, because bigger number equals better deal, right?

Not necessarily. Let's look at why.

The Headline Numbers (And What They Actually Mean)

Here's where both jackpots stand right now:

Powerball: $217 million annuity / $97.4 million cash
Lotto Texas: $36.5 million annuity / $19.8 million cash

The Powerball number is nearly 6x larger. Case closed? Not even close. Because jackpot size is only half the equation. The other half is how hard it is to win.

Powerball odds: 1 in 292,201,338
Lotto Texas odds: 1 in 25,827,165

Read that again. Lotto Texas is 11.3 times easier to win than Powerball. You're still more likely to get struck by lightning, but the gap between these two games is enormous.

The Expected Value Breakdown

Expected value is the only honest way to compare lottery tickets. It tells you what a ticket is "worth" on average — accounting for both the prize and the probability of winning it.

Powerball EV (jackpot only):
$97,400,000 × (1 / 292,201,338) = $0.33 per $2 ticket

Lotto Texas EV (jackpot only):
$19,800,000 × (1 / 25,827,165) = $0.77 per $1 ticket

Even ignoring smaller prizes, the Lotto Texas ticket returns more than twice as many cents on the dollar. And it costs half as much.

Now, both tickets are still negative EV — you lose money on average either way. But if you're going to play the lottery tonight (and millions of you will), the $1 Lotto Texas ticket is objectively the better mathematical bet per dollar spent.

This is the thing that drives lottery marketers crazy and math teachers happy: the biggest jackpot is almost never the best deal.

Why Powerball Jumped $23 Million in Three Days

Wednesday's drawing — April Fools' Day — saw no jackpot winner. The numbers were 4-10-11-52-64 with a Powerball of 24. Nobody matched all six.

That rolled the jackpot from $194 million to tonight's $217 million. A $23 million jump in three days.

Here's the pattern: Powerball has gone 16 consecutive drawings without a jackpot winner. Every time that happens, the prize grows — but so does ticket sales volume. More tickets sold means more number combinations covered, which means the probability of someone winning increases each draw even though your individual odds stay exactly the same.

At $217 million, Powerball is healthy but not extraordinary. The game needs to reach roughly $1.3 billion before the expected value turns positive — and even then, jackpot splitting with other winners usually keeps it negative. We're a long way from that territory.

The Lotto Texas Sleeper

While everyone's talking Powerball, Lotto Texas has been quietly building to $36.5 million — one of the larger jackpots we've seen for this game in recent months.

What makes Lotto Texas interesting beyond the better odds:

No state income tax. Texas doesn't tax lottery winnings. If you win the $19.8 million cash option, you're paying federal taxes (37% top bracket) and that's it. After-tax take-home: roughly $12.5 million.

Compare that to winning Powerball in, say, New York — where you'd lose 37% federal plus up to 10.9% state tax. The same cash prize shrinks dramatically depending on where you bought the ticket.

Smaller player pool. Lotto Texas is only available in Texas. Powerball is sold in 45 states plus DC, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Fewer players means less chance of splitting the jackpot if you do win.

For Texas residents: you can literally play both tonight. But if you're choosing one, the math points to Lotto Texas.

What Else Is Brewing

Mega Millions rolled to $100 million after nobody hit the jackpot on Friday. That draw comes up next on Tuesday, April 7. It's been climbing steadily — from $80 million earlier this week — and could push into $120M+ territory if Tuesday passes without a winner.

Meanwhile, Michigan's lottery has been handing out wins like candy this week. A 65-year-old Bay County woman claimed a $1.1 million Lotto 47 jackpot after playing the same game for over 20 years. And earlier, an Oakland County woman won $251,738 on Fantasy 5 from a literal misclick — she was trying to buy a different game online, tapped the wrong button, and accidentally purchased a winning ticket.

Two very different stories, same lesson: the numbers don't care how you picked them. System, birthday, misclick, Quick Pick — each combination has exactly the same probability.

Tonight's Play-By-Play

If you're buying a ticket for tonight, here's the timing:

• Lotto Texas draw: 10:12 PM CT
• Powerball draw: 9:59 PM CT (10:59 ET)

Check our results page after the drawings — we update within minutes.

The Bottom Line

$217 million is a lot of money. So is $36.5 million. So is $100 million next Tuesday. The question isn't which number sounds biggest — it's which game gives you the most value for your dollar.

Tonight, that answer is Lotto Texas. Not because you're likely to win (you're not — 1 in 25.8 million is still absurd), but because the ratio of prize to odds to ticket cost is the most favorable option on the board right now.

Play what you want. Just know what you're buying.

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Use our lottery calculator to see exactly how much you'd take home from any jackpot, in any state. Or try the number generator if you're tired of picking birthdays.