USA Powerball Lottery Coming to Britain – Biggest Jackpots in the World

Last Updated: Tuesday 14th April 2026, 11:29

Big news this morning for lottery fans – as the title says, America's Powerball lottery, the game responsible for the world's biggest (multi-billion-dollar!) jackpots, will be made available in Britain officially, via the UK National Lottery. Unprecedented!

All About Powerball

Unless you're an international lottery fan, chances are you're not familiar with the USA's Powerball lottery. It's played in all 45 of the states that actually have a lottery (in America, there is no 'national lottery', each state runs its own lottery. Five states are lottery-less for a mix of legal, religious, and pragmatic reasons) as well as three 'jurisdictions': Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.

The jackpots for Powerball are the biggest in the world. Of the ten largest jackpot prizes ever won internationally, six were Powerball jackpots, and the current top four are all Powerball jackpots. The largest of these, the world-record jackpot, was valued at $2.04 billion, or £1,507,101,000. For comparison, that's nearly eight times larger than the biggest jackpot ever won in Britain, which was worth £195,707,000.

How to Play Powerball

It's a simple game to play: select five main numbers from 1 to 69, and a Powerball number from 1 to 26. It's your job to match as many of these as possible during the draw to win prizes – match all six to win the jackpot.

In the USA, there are some optional add-ons available, although these haven't been mentioned in the National Lottery press release, suggesting that they won't be available in the UK, although they haven't been ruled out. US players can add 'Power Play' to their tickets, multiplying any prizes they win by 2-10 times. Some states also offer 'Double Play', where players pay extra to enter their chosen numbers in an additional draw for more chances to win.

The Powerball Jackpot

The Powerball jackpot starts at $20 million (approximately £12 million) and increases for every draw it's not won, in proportion to the ticket sales for that draw. As the jackpot grows, sales increase, causing the value of the grand prize to snowball. In the past year, the jackpot has been increasing by roughly $10-$25 million for every rollover draw, becoming noticeably more once the $500 million threshold is crossed. From that point, it's not uncommon for the jackpot to grow by more than $100 million in a single draw. This makes large jackpot runs feel very exciting! The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million. For comparison, the EuroMillions jackpot odds are 1 in 139 million. Steep odds are the price we pay for billion-dollar jackpots!

There are some caveats involved in the numbers used to describe the Powerball jackpot. In the USA, lottery winners have to pay from 24% to 35% tax on any winnings above $5,000 depending on the state lottery that sold the ticket. Jackpot values shown are always pre-tax. Future UK winners will not, however, be taxed on their winnings as far as we're aware.

The value shown is also always the "annuity" jackpot. In the USA, big winners get to pick between a 20-30 year annuity prize, or a "cash" prize, where they get a smaller sum of money all at once. The Cash value represents the actual amount of money in the prize pool, while the Annuity value represents the amount of money the lottery can raise over the annuity period by investing the Cash value. Most American winners pick the Cash prize which, for reasons outside the scope of this article, is usually considered to be the more financially literate option. UK players will only be able to receive the 30-year annuity prize, however.

Remember the $2.04 billion record jackpot from earlier? Once the winner had taken the Cash option and paid tax on it, they were left with $628.5 million – about 1/3 of the advertised jackpot, but still more than twice as much as the biggest ever UK jackpot win (which the winners received in full, right away, untaxed).

Other Prizes on Offer

Aside from the jackpot, the UK version of the game will use a totally different set of prize tiers. The lowest is £8 for matching two main numbers, while the second-place prize is £1,000,000 for matching five main numbers. The overall odds of winning any prize will be 1 in 14. You can find a full table of Odds and Prizes at the end of this article.

Ticket Costs & Draw Times

The new UK Powerball tickets are set to cost £4, which is much more expensive than US Powerball tickets! US Powerball tickets cost just $2, equivalent to £1.50. This could be a way to compensate for the fact that UK winners will not be paying any taxes on their winnings (let's hope the Chancellor doesn't get any ideas), although there may well be other reasons.

Powerball draws will take place at 4:00 AM GMT – not the most convenient, but it is an American game after all, and they're already playing it across a whopping five different time zones too. In America, the Powerball draws are held every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday evening, but because we're ahead of them, we'll end up getting the winning numbers on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday!

Stay Updated, and Get Involved!

We'll be sure to post about any new details as and when they're released, and we'll be working hard to update the website in time for the game's launch in summer. The exact date of the launch is just one of those details yet to be confirmed. In the same announcement as the Powerball news, Allwyn also confirmed some significant changes to the Lotto and Hotpicks games, which we've also covered on the site.

Did you know, it's already possible to participate in Powerball from the UK using third-party lottery betting services? In practice, you're picking six numbers and placing a bet that they'll be drawn! The odds of winning are the exact same as if you had a real ticket.

Interestingly enough, many lottery betting platforms offer entries much cheaper than the proposed £4 UK Powerball ticket cost, so this method of play could end up extremely popular! Check our Tickets Page to find a Powerball vendor, and a variety of other international lotteries to boot.

*Estimated prize

Written by Matthew Dugdale

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