by Todd Wineburner

Your chances of winning the biggest prize in tonight's Powerball drawing is extremely small, but should you hit that chance it will pay off big. An estimated 208,000,000 dollars is on the line as the jackpot has been growing without a winner since the day after Christmas. 

The lump sum payment for a single winner amounts to about 130,000,000 dollars before taxes. If a winner chooses the annual payout instead, they'll take home about 6,900,000 dollars a year for the next 30 years. The odds of winning the largest payout is 1 in 175,000,000. Powerball is played in 42 states, including Illinois, plus the District of Columbia.