How to Play Powerball: Your Step-by-Step Guide
Discover how to play Powerball and fill out your play slip with our easy 4-point guide. You can make an entry online or at the shops, and the process doesn't take long at all.
Select Your Main Numbers and Powerball Number
First, pick five Main Numbers from 1 to 69, and a Powerball Number from 1 to 26. Your Powerball Number can be the same as one of your Main Numbers. In the UK, there are no optional ticket add-ons for Powerball.
Choose your draw days
Since Powerball is a US lottery, the draw days are a bit more complicated. The draws take place in Florida at 10:59 PM, Eastern Time, every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. In Britain, that works out at 4:00 AM GMT on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays due to the different time zones! Mark on your play slip or online form which of the draw days you'd like your numbers entered into.
Play Weeks in Advance?
Like other National Lottery games, it's possible to enter up to four weeks' worth of draws at a time – simply mark the relevant section of the play slip or online form. If you selected multiple draw days, your numbers will be entered into all of those draws for each week you choose to play. If you play online, you can set up a direct debit and automatically enter the same numbers each week.
Make Your Purchase
Complete your purchase for £4 per ticket. If you've got a physical paper ticket, keep this safe, as you'll need it (intact!) to claim any prizes you win. If you played online, your entry is secure, and all but the largest of prizes will be automatically deposited in your online lottery account. With online play, you'll typically receive an email notification if your numbers win a prize.
How to Win Powerball Prizes
Five numbers and two Lucky Stars are randomly selected in every Powerball draw. To land a prize, you have to match your chosen numbers with the winning ones. If you get all seven the same, you will bank a share of the jackpot – which starts at €17 million (approximately £14 million) and rolls over when it is not won.
There are 12 other prize tiers in addition to the jackpot, so you even win an award if you match just two of the main numbers. Visit the Powerball Prizes and Odds page for more information about all the ways to win.
Additional Powerball Games in the UK
To win Powerball prizes, you need to match as many as possible of the six numbers you chose with the six winning numbers – that is, the five Main Numbers plus the Powerball Number. There are ten distinct prize categories. The minimum you need to win a prize is to match the Powerball Number, or two Main Numbers, to win you an estimated £11.90 and a fixed £8 respectively.
To win the jackpot, you need to match all six numbers. The Powerball jackpot has a minimum of roughly £12 million (it's always exactly $20 million) and rapidly increases. The runner-up prize is also of note: If you manage to match all five Main Numbers, just missing the Powerball Number, the prize is a fixed £1,000,000.
You may have noticed that some of the prizes are "estimated" – this is because the exact prize values for some of the categories will be determined on a draw-by-draw basis, derived from the number of winners in each category and the total number of tickets sold. This is known as a 'pari-mutuel' prize structure. Check out the full list of prizes over on our Powerball Odds & Prizes page.
USA-Exclusive: Additional Powerball Add-Ons
Although they aren't available in the UK, Powerball offers US players some optional add-ons that we'll briefly mention here. After all, they might one day be introduced in the UK too!
Power Play
Power Play is a random multiplier selected alongside the winning numbers that boosts any non-jackpot prizes won. It ranges from 2X to 5X and when the jackpot is under $150 million, a 10X multiplier is also in the mix. These multipliers are weighted so that bigger ones are rarer. Power Play costs an extra $1 per play.
Double Play
Some states, but not all, offer Double Play. For an additional $1 per play, the player's numbers are entered into an additional drawing. The prize categories for this drawing are the same, but most of the prize values for these categories are greater than the main-game prizes. The hitting the Double Play jackpot results in a prize of $10 million. Power Play doesn't apply to Double Play numbers.
