Powerball is considered to be the biggest lottery across the World. Starting jackpot is outstanding $40 million. Remember that results of South African Powerball are located elsewhere, and this page concerns North American version of the game.
How to play US Powerball?
This lottery game is offered in 44 states in the United States of America and also 3 more jurisdictions like Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and District of Columbia.
- Choose 5 white balls from 1-69 possible.
- Choose 1 number from 1-26 red power balls.
- Pay $2 for the ticket or $3 if you've chosen the power play option.
- You can choose numbers randomly using terminal.
- Drawings take place in Florida and are organized by a studio in Tallahassee.
- Drawing time is 10 p.m. Eastern Time (2 a.m. Universal Time), three times a week.
- The chance to win anything is like 1 to 24.87, chance to win a jackpot only 1 to 292,201,338.
Power Play option
It is quite an unusual option for the game because the player needs to decide if wants to have better odds for the main jackpot or want to win more with lower divisions of payouts, using the same amount of money wagered on the tickets. A player can activate power play for a cost of $1 and it multiplies lower tier winnings up to 5 times. When the jackpot is below $150 million it can be multiplied even 10 times. Power Play is drawn in a separate machine.
Powerball prizes & odds
Biggest prizes are paid gradually in 30 annual payments unless you decide to take lump cash out, but a sum of this payment is always much less. This is due to the falling value of money with time. The interesting fact is that all tier prizes are fixed except jackpot prize.
Match | Prize | Odds |
5+1 | Jackpot | 1: 292,201,338 |
5+0 | $1,000,000 | 1 : 11,688,054 |
4+1 | $50,000 | 1 : 913,129 |
4+0 | $100 | 1 : 36,525 |
3+1 | $100 | 1 : 14,494 |
3+0 | $7 | 1 : 580 |
2+1 | $7 | 1 : 701 |
1+1 | $4 | 1 : 92 |
only PB | $4 | 1 : 38 |
Be aware that US version of Powerball produced the biggest ever jackpot in the world worth incredible $1.586 billion on January 13, 2016. It was split by the three tickets. We don't if these tickets were bought by the group of people or individuals.
History of biggest jackpots
Powerball is the successor of the old game called Lotto America. The new game started in April 1992 and made many people millionaires. Lottery jackpots around the globe - records.
- 13th January 2016 - $1.58 billion won by three tickets in Tennessee, Florida, and California.
- 23rd August 2017 - $758.7 million won by one winner - the biggest single -ticket win in the world.
- 18th May 2013 - $590.5 million won by an older woman living in Florida.
Statistics and Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL) company informations
The Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), an union of state lotteries, administers Powerball and a few different, less-known games that are marketed by multiple states. All US lotteries sell Powerball plus Mega Millions, a game similar in structure to Powerball. No lottery shares in the governance of both games - this is a remainder from the period before 2010, while each jurisdiction could sell one game or the other, but not both.