LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Lottery players across the country had their eyes on one set of numbers Saturday night as Powerball officials drew the winning combination for an estimated $856 million jackpot, one of the largest grand prizes in the game’s history.

The numbers drawn were 5, 9, 35, 54 and 63, with a red Powerball of 7. The Power Play multiplier was 3X.

No jackpot winner had been confirmed in the hours immediately following the drawing. Players who match all five white balls plus the red Powerball win the top prize, which carried an estimated cash value of roughly $341.6 million to $370.7 million, depending on final ticket sales figures reported by state lottery officials.

At its current size, Saturday’s jackpot ranks among the eight largest in Powerball’s history, and it sits just behind a $980 million Mega Millions prize claimed by a ticket sold in Georgia last fall when measured against all major U.S. lottery jackpots.

How the jackpot got here

Saturday’s drawing capped months of steady growth. The jackpot has been climbing since May, when the game last produced winners of a much smaller prize — two tickets, one sold in Florida and one in Texas, split a $20,000 payout. Since then, no player has matched all six numbers needed to claim the grand prize, allowing the pot to swell drawing after drawing.

In the drawing immediately before Saturday’s, single tickets sold in Indiana and Kansas split a $143.4 million jackpot. That drawing also produced dozens of smaller, non-jackpot winners across the country, results that drew almost as much attention as the jackpot split itself.

What winners need to know

Lottery officials remind winners to sign the back of their physical tickets immediately and to contact their state lottery for instructions on claiming a prize. In Kentucky, for example, jackpot winners are required to claim their prize in person at the Kentucky Lottery’s headquarters on Main Street in downtown Louisville. Winners in Kentucky have 180 days from the drawing date to come forward; claim windows and requirements vary by state.

The Kentucky Lottery has paid out nearly $1.8 billion in prizes so far this year. Proceeds from ticket sales fund scholarships and grants that support more than 1.1 million college students statewide, according to the lottery.

Odds and other ways to win

Matching all six numbers is difficult by design. The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot stand at roughly 1 in 292.2 million. But the game offers eight additional prize tiers, giving players an overall 1-in-24.87 chance of winning some amount of money on any given ticket, even without matching the jackpot numbers.

Prize amounts for lower tiers include $1 million for matching all five white balls without the Powerball, $50,000 for matching four white balls plus the Powerball, and smaller amounts ranging down to $4 for matching only the red Powerball. Power Play, an optional add-on, can multiply non-jackpot prizes by two, three, four, five or occasionally ten times, depending on the multiplier drawn.

Where to play

Powerball is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the United Kingdom. Tickets cost $2 each in the United States and its territories. Players do not need to be a U.S. citizen or resident to purchase a ticket or claim a prize in most jurisdictions.

What’s next

If no ticket matches all six numbers from Saturday’s drawing, the jackpot will roll over and grow again for the next scheduled drawing, set for Monday at 10:59 p.m. ET. Powerball drawings are held three times a week — every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Lottery officials typically confirm within 24 to 48 hours whether a jackpot-winning ticket was sold, and if so, in which state. Retailers that sell a winning ticket may also become eligible for a separate bonus from the lottery, an incentive that often draws local attention even when the winner remains anonymous.

Players are encouraged to check their tickets carefully against the official winning numbers through their state lottery’s website or mobile app, rather than relying solely on secondhand reports, to avoid confusion over ticket validity.

As the jackpot climbs into the upper tier of Powerball history, lottery retailers nationwide have reported a surge in ticket sales in the days leading up to major drawings — a pattern lottery officials say typically repeats whenever a jackpot approaches or exceeds the $500 million mark.

Whether or not Saturday’s drawing produces a jackpot winner, officials say the game’s smaller prize tiers reliably produce thousands of winners with every drawing, spreading payouts across nearly every state where tickets are sold.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. spent about $4.5 billion to buy back its own shares in the second quarter and purchased nearly $20 billion of equities in the period, signs that Chief Executive Officer Greg Abel is putting more of the firm’s cash pile to work.

Berkshire started buying back its own shares in the first quarter for the first time in more than a year. Earlier this year, Abel said Berkshire was restarting buybacks because executives found the “intrinsic value” of those shares exceeded their market price.

“People are going to be encouraged by the buybacks,” said Cathy Seifert, an analyst for CFRA Research. “It’s also Greg’s way of taking the helm and asserting himself.”

The stock buybacks provided shareholders with their largest quarterly payout since 2021. The firm’s cash hoard fell to $365.5 billion in the second quarter, down from roughly $397 billion in the prior period.

Operating earnings climbed 16% in the three months through June to nearly $13 billion, driven in part by gains in the conglomerate’s manufacturing, service and retailing division, as well as at its utilities business, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said Saturday in a statement.

Berkshire’s earnings are typically closely watched because its businesses — ranging from insurance to railroads to energy and manufacturing — provide a snapshot of the health of the US economy.
After years of relatively quiet deal activity under Warren Buffett, who often complained of high market valuations, his successor sealed back-to-back multibillion-dollar transactions.The newly minted CEO spent $6.8 billion to buy homebuilder Taylor Morrison Home Corp., a typical value bet, while also handing $10 billion to Google parent Alphabet Inc. to support its investments related to artificial intelligence, a new area for the conglomerate.

The deal puts Alphabet among Berkshire’s top five holdings at the end of the quarter, replacing Chevron Corp. The Taylor Morrison transaction closed in the third quarter.

Halfway through his first year at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway, Abel has been praised by shareholders for his leadership.

Still, Berkshire’s Class B shares rose 3.8% this year as of market close Friday, compared with a roughly 13% gain for the S&P 500 — a benchmark that Buffett himself frequently cited.

Operational Improvements

Net income at Berkshire’s railroad unit BNSF rose 6.3% to about $1.6 billion amid higher shipping volumes, despite higher fuel costs. BNSF CEO Katie Farmer has been charged with improving the unit’s operating margin and closing the gap with its most efficient peers.

Geico, the main contributor to Berkshire’s insurance results, posted pretax underwriting earnings that fell by 45%, to $994 million, in the second quarter amid higher losses and an increase in commissions and advertising expenses.

“This is in sharp contrast to what we’re seeing at some other underwriters” that are struggling with sales because of competition but still reporting “some really strong underwriting profits,” Seifert said.

The decline more than offset gains at Berkshire’s other primary insurance and reinsurance businesses, resulting in a 13% decline in net underwriting income for the entire insurance group to $1.7 billion.

Over the period, net income at the conglomerate’s collection of manufacturing, service and retailing units jumped 24% to $4.5 billion, while profits at Berkshire’s utilities business surged 27%, to $891 million.

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