At $700 million, Wednesday night’s Powerball prize was the second-largest lottery jackpot in its history, and the math is working out in favor of lotto commissions.

Two years ago, the chances of becoming an instant millionaire were 1 in roughly 175 million. Now, the odds are 1 in roughly 292 million.

Tweaks to the game in October 2015 increased the number of total balls, from 59 to 69, from which players need to pick five. It may seem like a modest change, but the odds of winning the jackpot shot up astronomically.

So now it’s even harder to strike it rich with Powerball, leading to fewer chances of big payouts, which in turn rolls over to gigantic prizes such as the one Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, media reports and social-media posts fuel an ever-increasing prize, Kelly Tabor, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Lottery, told The Washington Post.

That is how the $1.6 billion amount paid out three ways in January 2016 reached its historic value.

Wednesday’s jackpot of $700 million was expected to balloon by Wednesday morning because of what Tabor called “jackpot chasers,” the casual lottery players who join in when the Powerball reaches astronomical heights.

“That’s really driving up sales right now,” she said.

The pot has been growing since June after the twice-weekly drawings netted no winners.

And if no one claims the winning ticket Wednesday, Tabor said, the next jackpot will probably surpass the $1.6 billion prize as the biggest ever.

States, not necessarily players, are reaping the rewards of the sales surge. National lottery ticket sales in 2016 totaled more than $80 billion, according to figures from the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries cited by the Associated Press. That’s more than was spent last year on movies, video games, books, music and sports tickets combined.

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