Powerball FAQ

$2 per play. Power Play costs $1 more and multiplies non-jackpot prizes by 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X or 10X (10X is in play only when the advertised jackpot is $150 million or less), and a Match 5 prize with Power Play is always $2 million. In Idaho and Montana, Powerball is sold only with Power Play, so a play costs $3. Double Play costs another $1 where it is offered (30 lotteries) and enters the same numbers in a separate drawing with a $10 million top cash prize.

The jackpot odds are 1 in 292,201,338 per play. You pick 5 numbers from 1–69 plus a Powerball from 1–26, and the jackpot needs all six to match. The odds of winning any prize at all are 1 in 24.87.

Drawings are held Monday, Wednesday and Saturday at 10:59 PM ET. Each state sets its own cut-off for ticket sales before the drawing, so check your state lottery for the exact time.

There are nine ways to win. Matching only the Powerball wins the smallest prize, and the jackpot takes all five white balls plus the Powerball. One or two white balls without the Powerball win nothing. The ways-to-win page lists every tier.

After each jackpot win the advertised jackpot goes back to $20 million, then grows with ticket sales until someone wins it again.

The advertised jackpot is the annuity: one payment right away, then 29 annual payments, each 5% larger than the one before. The cash option is a single payment of the money actually in the jackpot prize pool. For the record jackpots won since 2022 it has been roughly 43% to 58% of the advertised figure, depending largely on interest rates. Both options are taxable.

Yes. Lottery prizes are taxable income. When a prize minus the cost of the ticket is more than $5,000, the lottery withholds 24% for federal income tax, and the tax you finally owe can be higher than that. State tax depends on where you bought the ticket and where you live.

Each state sets its own deadline, from 90 days to one year after the drawing depending on where the ticket was sold. Check your state lottery's website for the exact period.

That depends on the state where the ticket was sold. Some states let winners keep their names private, some release them, and some allow a claim through a trust or other legal entity. Our state pages give the rule for each state.

No. Every combination has the same odds in every drawing. Hot and cold numbers describe past draws only; we publish them because people like to look, and the statistics page explains how they're counted.

From a commercial lottery results feed that our servers check every two minutes, so results usually appear here within minutes of the drawing. The official record is powerball.com: always confirm a result there before acting on it.