Powerball

Powerball is easily the most popular lottery in the world. One of the reasons is that it does not have a jackpot cap. Meaning, as long as nobody wins the jackpot, it just keeps on growing and growing and… you get the drift.

Powerball was established as a national lottery in the US in 1992. Mind you, back then only 15 states participated. Nowadays 45 states and 3 US territories participate. Not to mention all those people in the rest of the world who play via lottery agents.

Another interesting titbit about Powerball is the fact that it was the first lottery in the world that used the idea of drawing from two different sets of numbers. Plenty of other lotteries have taken up the concept since then.

Powerball also holds the world record of largest ever jackpot won. That was in January 2016 and the jackpot was $1.586 billion. Instead of going to just one winner, however, the jackpot was shared among three parties from California, Florida and Tennessee.

The Powerball draw takes place in Tallahassee, Florida, on Wednesday and Saturday night.

How to play Powerball

How to play Powerball has changed several times during the last 28 years. Mostly where the number pools to pick from are concerned. Initially, you’d pick 5 numbers from 5 to 45 and then another number from 1 to 45. The last time this game matrix changed was in 2015. Now you have to pick 5 numbers from 1 to 69 and the Powerball number from 1 to 26.

The interesting option to add is the Power Play feature, which can add a multiplier to your win from 2x to 5x on all tiers. A 10x multiplier is only available as long as the jackpot does not exceed $150 million.

One pick of numbers officially costs $2. Adding the Power Play feature carries an additional charge.

And if you want to play Powerball, you can visit any of our recommended lottery sites as they all offer Powerball among the lotteries that are available.

Prize Tiers

Powerball comes with 9 winning tiers. The prizes for each tier are set except for the jackpot, of course, which keeps growing until it is won.

As you can see, the lower tiers are all set in value. Of course, with the Powerplay applied, multipliers of 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x and even 10x are possible. That said, the second tier will be set at $2 million when Powerplay is selected, regardless of any further multipliers.

Biggest jackpots to date

We’ve already mentioned the biggest Powerball jackpot ever, which was over $1.5 billion. Since there were three winners, all of them would have received somewhat over $500 million.

With Powerball it’s important to know that winners can choose a lump sum, which is significantly lower than the total jackpot prize. Plus, in the US, taxes are deducted from lottery wins as well, shrinking the win that ends up in your account even further.

As such, the most recent largest single win of $768.4 million in March 2019 was reduced to $326 million since the winner wanted the lump sum and taxes were deducted as well. Still, nobody would complain about that much money, which you cannot conceivably spend in a lifetime anyway (though some people would like to try).

Prior to that, the single highest win was paid out in August 2017 to the tune of $758.7 million.

The Powerball jackpot starts at $40 million, which plenty of winners have taken home. But we’ve also noticed several wins of over $500 million. The complete list of jackpot winners can be found on the official Powerball homepage.

By the way, most winners prefer the lump sum payment instead of the annual payment of the entire sum across 30 years. After all, do you know where you’ll be in five or ten years? Or even tomorrow?

Where to play Powerball

Needless to say, you can play Powerball at all the sites we recommend for you and have reviewed in depth.

• TheLotter
• Lottoland Asia
• Lotto247
• PlayHugeLottos
• LottoKings

Not all these sites are lottery agents, however. As such, you need to decide whether you want to get an actual Powerball ticket and hope for the jackpot or if you simply want to be on the outcome and still win a substantial amount of money.

If you were to play via TheLotter, you’d get a real ticket with a scan into your account. If you were to win the jackpot, you could then claim it in person in the US. They’d even shout you the ticket to fly over to Florida.

At most other sites you would almost certainly end up betting on the outcome of the lottery and if you were lucky enough to pick all numbers correctly, you can expect to receive the win as an annuity as well.

Whichever way you prefer, make sure to do your research. We’re also looking at the following aspects when reviewing lottery pages.

• Trustworthiness and transparency
• Available promotions
• Other games (scratch cards, keno, instant win games, casino games)
• Selection of lotteries (national, international, etc.)

Your options are varied and if we can make a recommendation, we’d probably choose a real lottery agent, where you can play tons of international lotteries besides Powerball.