Powerball Jackpot Hits $638 Million Ahead of Christmas Drawing

The Powerball jackpot has climbed to $638 million just in time for Christmas after no one claimed the winning numbers from Saturday night's drawing.

If a player wins the Yuletide drawing, they will have the option to take a lump-sum payment of $321.1 million or take the full $638 million jackpot spread out over three decades in yearly payments. For a winner who accepts a one-time payment, they'll take home more than $202 million after federal taxes are accounted for, according to calculations by Usamega.com. State taxes will also apply to the prize.

Just three Powerball jackpots have been won on Christmas, according to Powerball. The last time that occurred was in 2013 when an individual in Missouri won a $71.5 million prize.

“This could be a very Merry Christmas for a Powerball player!” Drew Svitko, Powerball's product group chair, said. “It’s not often that we have a Powerball drawing coincide with the Christmas holiday and with a jackpot of this magnitude."

This is the fourth Powerball jackpot to exceed half a billion dollars over the past year. The last jackpot was won on Oct. 11, when a ticket in California won $1.76 billion — the second-largest U.S. lottery prize ever won.