There are 292,201,338 possible Powerball combinations in the current standard game format.

How that number is calculated

In Powerball, you choose:

  • 5 distinct white balls from 69 numbers.
  • 1 red Powerball from 26 numbers.

The number of ways to choose 5 white balls from 69 (order does not matter) is the combination (695)\binom{69}{5}(569​).

Then you multiply by 26 for the red ball choices, giving:

(695)×26=292,201,338\binom{69}{5}\times 26=292{,}201{,}338(569​)×26=292,201,338

possible different tickets.

Why the odds feel so long

  • Each individual ticket has a 1 in 292,201,338 chance of matching all numbers exactly.
  • Even buying thousands of tickets barely dents those odds, which is why jackpots can roll over and grow so large.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.