Power Ball Drawing Numbers & Results | How To Play Power Ball

Powerball is the most popular multi-state lottery game in the United States, with millions of players joining in every week. This popularity isn’t just about the name—it’s about the massive jackpots, which often reach hundreds of millions, and the simplicity of getting started. Whether you buy a ticket at a local store or online, it only takes a few seconds to join the action. We’re going to explore why Powerball has become a cornerstone of the nationwide lottery system and the impact it has had on players and the industry as a whole.

Power Ball Facts

A little about the history of Powerball

Powerball was the brainchild of Steve Caputo and Edward Stanek, the latter of whom was the president of the Iowa Lottery. 

It launched on February 13, 1998 in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oregon, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia. Back then it was known as Lotto America. In the early days, due to the connection to Stanek, drawings were held in West Des Moines (Iowa).

The name changed to Powerball in April 1992. The organizers also started to use two drums to make the drawings, as a way of creating additional prize levels. 

In 2001, the PowerPlay multiplier was introduced. Originally a spinning wheel was used to determine the actual multiples. That later moved to a random number generator, known better as an RNG. 

Georgia and Maine actually pulled out at one point, but then they came back into the fold.

Interestingly enough, Florida did not want to be part of Powerball at first. Jeb Bush, the governor at the time, thought that it might have the effect of hurting the other lottery games in the Sunshine State.

During the administration of the next governor, Charlie Crist, the attitude changed. Crist brought Florida into Powerball on January 4, 2009, with the major condition that drawings in the future be moved to Universal Studios in Orlando.

Powerball is currently available through 45 state lotteries, in addition to the District of Columbia, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico (Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah do not have state lotteries).

It is overseen by the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), which also runs Mega Millions. Drawings are held every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 11:59 PM ET. Those drawings now take place at the Florida Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee.

In 2010, there came a pivotal moment. New Jersey’s state lottery wanted to do Powerball, while it was already engaged in another multi-state game (Mega Millions). 

This caused some discussion about outlets being able to sell both Powerball and Mega Millions. But that became a reality with what was referred to as the “Cross-sell expansion,” which, for you football fans, might have been the lottery’s version of the NFL-AFL merger.

On January 31, 2010, no less than ten states came aboard with Powerball and 23 more with Mega Millions.

And more were added afterward. Mississippi became the 45th state lottery to sign on with Powerball, and it did so with Mega Millions the very same day.

Powerball pays; the largest jackpot they have ever given out was $2.04 billion in 2022, which came from Altadena, CA.

How do you go about playing Powerball?

Here’s how you’re going to play Powerball. On the top part of your ticket is a pool with the numbers 1 through 69. You are going to choose five numbers in that pool. 

Then in the lower part of the ticket you are going to see another pool, where the numbers go from 1 to 26. You will pick one number in this pool. This is the “Powerball.” 

What you are looking to do is match all five of the numbers you have chosen from the first pool (we can call these the ‘regular’ numbers) and match the number that was chosen for the Powerball as well. If you do this, you win the jackpot.

And that will be the luckiest day of your life, we can assure you. Jackpots start out at $20 million and they continue to go up from there, increasing with each drawing cycle in which there is not a winner.

You will pay two dollars ($2) per play. So if you decide to play five panels on the ticket, that will cost you $10. Unless…..

You want to take part in the “PowerPlay”

Do you want to increase your potential winnings? What you can do is add another $1 to your entry and designate this as a “PowerPlay.” 

If you win a prize and have the PowerPlay enabled, your win (a non-jackpot win, that is) gets multiplied. How much it gets multiplied is determined right before the main draw. It is either going to be 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x or 10x, depending on that draw.

So let’s say you were fortunate enough to match five out of five numbers without the Powerball, your normal win is $1 million. But if, say, the PowerPlay was going to yield 2x (two times the win) you’d wind up with $2 million for your efforts.

There’s another option – the Double Play. This will cost another $1 and applies to all the panels you have marked on your Powerball ticket. It is possible to win a prize up to $10 million with this option,

So you say you want to buy Powerball tickets online?

Well, you can be accommodated in that regard. 

First of all, there are a number of state lotteries that sell tickets online. These states are Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Illinois, North Dakota, Virginia, Kentucky and New Hampshire, plus the District of Columbia. In Maine, Maryland and New York, you can join by subscription.

There is also a very popular lottery app called Jackpocket. It can be downloaded in 17 states, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. This is known as a “lottery courier app,” and it is a third-party source to buy tickets for Powerball and other games online.

If you are in the above states, you can play through this app. What they do is purchase tickets from authorized retailers on behalf of customers who have opened up an account. The customer receives a scanned ticket to confirm everything.

By no means is this sneaky. Jackpocket does this with the acquiescence of the various states, so in effect they are partners with them.

Jackpocket will notify a lottery participant in the event of a win, and for the smaller prizes ($600 or less), they can deposit that money right into the player’s account.

It should be noted that the customers who open an account with Jackpocket keep 100% of what they win. The only fee they charge the customer for is a one-time service fee when the first deposit is made into an account, This amount is generally around 7%. There are no hidden fees.

Like a casino, they have a welcome offer, which is $3 off the first purchase of tickets that is made. No promo code is needed. The app will adapt to the Android, iPhone and also can be used over the Web.

When customers log in, they play just as if they have a ticket in their hands. So the player can pick the numbers (or get random picks). As a player, you can also have a subscription with them, which will make you active on every drawing going forward.

Again, like it would be in a casino, you could also withdraw from an account. All you have to do is enter the necessary banking information, and the transaction will be completed within 3-5 business days.

Deposits can be made using Visa, MasterCard, Discover, PayPal, the Play+ Card, Venmo, Apple Pay, bank transfers and ACH / e-Check.

There are some options customers can exercise in association with their account. For example, they can bring friends into the fold, and if they register with an account, they’ll receive a Refer-a-Friend payment of $10. 

They can also invite friends to participate in private pools. They can also get involved with public pools, in which they enter with one ticket. If the pool wins, all winnings are split evenly between the entries.

And there are subscriptions available. This can include Autoplay, which can automatically enter the customer in every drawing. 

There are other services customers can turn to for Powerball action. TheLotter.us is another “lottery courier service” is a product of TheLotter group, which has been in existence since 2002.

It is an outlet whereby customers can buy official Powerball tickets that are purchased for them from whatever state they live in.

TheLotter doesn’t take any commissions from customers who win, but unlike Jackpocket, where they earn from the deposits of their customers, they will charge customers on a per-ticket basis. So when a customer buys a $2 ticket, TheLotter takes 60 cents out of it.

The interface provides everything a player needs to know in order to play Powerball. Right in front of you, there are the online tickets to play from. There is all the information anyone would need in order to play Powerball on any given day.

There are certain options any customer can avail himself or herself of. Choosing to purchase multiple draws is one of those. If you’re on the site, you can play four draws all the way up to 50. And by the way, you can get 10% off if you  commit to 50 draws.

Subscriptions are available, and with this arrangement you are automatically involved in every consecutive draw until you stop it. Every tenth ticket along the lines of this option is free to the customer.

And the “Quick Pick,” which selects the numbers automatically for the customer, is always there if desired. 

There are also special offers; one of them gives 10% off on the first order.

You always get up-to-date results at TheLotter, along with a countdown clock that tells you when the next Powerball drawing is. There is 24-7 customer support, available through live chat and email. Tickets that are purchased are securely stored and don’t get lost.

Payments can be made through Visa debit and MasterCard debit, Discover or through ACH (Automated Clearing House). When making a withdrawal, it has to be done through the same method the customer registered for a deposit.

What are the odds of winning at Powerball?

The odds of winning something in a game of Powerball are roughly one in 25. The odds of winning the jackpot are more than one in 292 million.

If you are interested in a more exact breakdown of what the odds are, we offer this table:

What are the various payouts for winning Powerball combinations?

One of the great things about Powerball is that it’s been designed so that there are a number of ways to win.

There are, in fact, nine different outcomes that can yield a return. You can take a look at those through this table, and compare them with the actual odds against those outcomes happening.

This is based on the standard $2 ticket.

Okay, so you’ve won the Powerball jackpot. Now what?

Powerball pays the biggest jackpots. We have mentioned that before.

As we write this, there have been three of those jackpots that have amounted to more than a billion dollars. The first one that topped that figure came in 2016, and there were multiple winners, as players in California, Florida and Tennessee all had the right ticket. They won $528.8 million apiece.

So what happens when you hit a jackpot? Well, you had better hold on to your ticket to make sure you are a winner. If you have come in through a third-party service, they will notify you themselves.

The winnings in a case like that do not just get deposited into your account. The jackpot is just too big, even if they are at their lowest level in Powerball, where that prize starts at $20 million and then increases by a minimum of $10 million incrementally with each drawing where there was no winner.

You can’t go to a retailer either; they can’t handle it. It is necessary for you to collect the jackpot from whatever lottery office is within your jurisdiction. And they give you two choices:

–  A “lump sum” payment, which you can collect in full immediately.

– An “annuity” payment, in which you will get one payment immediately and then 29 yearly payments after that, increasing 5% each year.

So you have a choice to make. In some cases, you would have to make this choice ahead of the draw; in others, you’ll have a certain amount of time after the draw to decide. It depends on the state.

For example, in Florida (which is where the Powerball draw happens), you would have 180 days to claim the prize, and within 90 days you would have to decide whether you were going to take the lump sum option.

When you do the lump sum, you’re liable to be winning a little less than whatever the advertised jackpot is, because that figure includes an assumption about interest rates that an investment of that much will produce over time. In other words, it is an assumption that the customer will take the other option.

If you go with the annuity option, you’ll be able to take advantage of the interest the state earns year over year on the securities they invest in with that original cash pool.

So you would have to make your own decision as to what’s best for you….. If one should be so lucky as to win a jackpot of at least $20 million.

Yes, some people might suggest that they could die before cashing in on all those 29 future payments. But that does not relieve Powerball and the state of its obligation. In the event of a death, the designated heirs can collect that money.

FAQ