Virginia Powerball player misses historic $1.8B jackpot by 1 number — but doesn’t walk away empty-handed

Missed it by that much.

A Powerball player in Virginia missed out on the colossal $1.817 billion jackpot by just one number, but still walked away with a modest $100,000 payout.

Jeffrey Dimond, of Spotsylvania County, purchased a Powerball ticket ahead of the highly anticipated Christmas Eve drawing, which billed the jackpot as the second-largest prize in lottery history.

The winning numbers were 4, 25, 31, 52, 59 and the Powerball 19.

Dimond used the Easy Pick option at a Wawa outside Fredericksburg and matched five of the six numbers, including the Powerball, the Virginia Lottery announced Tuesday.

It wasn’t revealed which number Dimond missed.

A player with four correct white numbers plus the Powerball will usually win $50,000, but Dimond paid an extra dollar for “Power Play,” doubling his prize.

Dimond and his wife were unaware of their new fortune until they went to scan their tickets and received a message that they won $100,000.

The couple looked over their numbers and found they missed the jackpot by one number, lottery officials said.

They plan to buy a new roof and deck with their winnings.

Dimond had a 1 in 913,129.18 chance to match four numbers plus the Powerball. The chances of winning any Powerball prize are 1 in 25.

The odds of matching all six Powerball numbers are a mere 1 in 292,201,338.

A ticket in Arkansas beat the astronomical odds and matched all six numbers during the drawing.

The ticketholder, who has not claimed the prize, can choose between the $1.817 billion paid in 30 payments over 29 years or the one-time lump sum of  $834.9 million before taxes.

The ticket was sold at a Murphy USA gas station at the Walmart in Cabot, Arkansas.

Arkansas laws require lottery prizes to be claimed within 180 days of the drawing and allow the winner to remain anonymous until late 2028, when their identity becomes public record.

The historic grand prize was the second largest in lottery history, only behind the $2.04 billion jackpot won by California’s Edwin Castro in November 2022.

The drawing was initially marketed at $1.7 billion, but the pot was raised to the new life-changing figure after final ticket sales were tallied.

It is the second time the Powerball jackpot has been won on Christmas Eve; the first was in 2011, when an anonymous ticket holder cashed in on the $128.8 million payout in Maryland.