Powerball

Powerball is a world-famous lottery game played across the United States.

Powerball is played in 45 states plus the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The only states that do not participate in Powerball are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah.

Powerball draws are held three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 22:59 US Eastern Time.

Tickets cost $2.00 each.

To play Powerball, choose five numbers between 1 and 69 and a Powerball number between 1 and 26, or take a Quick Pick for randomly selected numbers.

In most participating states, players can add Power Play to their ticket for an extra $1.00 to multiply the odds of winning prizes by up to ten times (not including the jackpot)!

Since August 2021, participants can add Double Play to their ticket for an additional $1.00, which enters their Powerball numbers into an additional draw with a top prize of$10 million.

Currently there are 14 participating states - Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Washington. Other states might follow.

Jackpot

Powerball has a minimum guaranteed jackpot of $40 million; however, this was temporarily reduced to $20 million in 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The biggest ever single-ticket Powerball jackpot was $2.04 billion, won on November 7, 2022. This is also the world's biggest ever winning lottery jackpot.

The second biggest winning Powerball jackpot was $1.586 billion shared by three lucky winners on January 13, 2016.

Odds

The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338.

Prizes

Players can win prizes at nine different tiers, with overall odds of winning a prize at 1 in 25.

Payout and Taxes

Players have between 180 and 365 days to claim Powerball prizes, depending on the state in which the winning Powerball ticket was purchased.

Jackpot winners can receive a cash lump sum or take 30 annual payments.

All US lottery winnings over $600 are reported to the Inland Revenue Service, with prizes over $5,000 having 25% of their value deducted for federal taxation.

Players in California, Delaware, Florida, Mississippi, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wyoming and the US Virgin Islands pay no state taxes on lottery wins, with players in other participating Powerball states paying between 2.9% and 8.82% state tax depending on their location, while those living in New York City pay an additional 3.8% municipal tax. Participants in Puerto Rico pay between 5% and 20% tax depending on how much they win.

Overseas players should check local tax laws to find out if tax needs to be paid at home.

Who Can Play Powerball?

Players must be at least 18 years of age to buy Powerball tickets in most locations, with the following exceptions:

• Nebraska, in which players must be at least 19 years of age.
• Arizona, Iowa and Louisiana, in which players must be at least 21 years of age.

Powerball tickets can be purchased from authorized lottery retailers in all participating states, with some state lotteries also selling Powerball tickets via their official websites and mobile applications.

Players in non-participating states and from overseas can play Powerball on Lottery Agent websites.

History of Powerball

Powerball was previously known as Lotto America when it was first launched in 1988, only for Lotto America to disappear and then relaunch in 2017 as a new draw with a different format.

Powerball took its name in 1992, having undergone numerous format changes over the years, most recently to its current format and the addition of the 10x multiplier in October 2015.