What time is the Powerball draw in the UK?

Powerball draw times at a glance

Powerball is an American game, drawn in the evening, US time. For most of the year the UK is five hours ahead of the US East Coast, so the draw falls in the early hours of the next morning here: 3.59am on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Allwyn, which runs The National Lottery, often rounds it to “around 4am”.

You don't need to stay up for it. Sales close the evening before, and by breakfast time the winning numbers are on The National Lottery website and on our results page.

Why some websites say Monday, Wednesday and Saturday

Because every Powerball draw has two dates. In the US it's a Monday, Wednesday or Saturday night draw; in the UK the same balls are drawn in the early hours of Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday. The National Lottery dates its results by the UK day, but when you buy online its play slip asks you to choose Monday, Wednesday or Saturday: the nights you're buying for, with sales closing at 11.55pm.

American websites, and some UK ones, label the results with the US day, so “Monday's Powerball” on those sites is the UK's Tuesday draw. US websites also show US prizes in dollars, which don't apply to UK tickets. When you check a ticket, make sure you're looking at the right draw:

The very first UK draw shows how it works: tickets went on sale on Tuesday 21 July 2026, and the first draw UK players entered was the US draw of Wednesday 22 July, which in the UK took place in the early hours of Thursday 23 July 2026. Both dates refer to the same numbers.

The 2.59am draws: when the clocks change

Both countries put their clocks forward in spring and back in autumn, but not on the same weekends. The US changes on the second Sunday in March and the first Sunday in November; the UK on the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October. In between, the two are only four hours apart, so the 10.59pm US draw takes place at 2.59am UK time.

Sales still close at 11.55pm the night before. These are the dates:

Every other draw of the year is at 3.59am, whether the UK is on British Summer Time or Greenwich Mean Time. Since Tuesday 3 November 2026 the draw has been back at 3.59am.

When ticket sales close

To play in a draw you need to buy by 11.55pm the night before, online or in a shop: by Monday night for the Tuesday draw, by Wednesday night for Thursday's and by Saturday night for Sunday's. After that, entries are for the next draw. The National Lottery website and app sell right up to the cut-off; in a shop, the real deadline is closing time, which is often much earlier.

You can buy up to four weeks in advance, choosing one, two or all three draws a week. There's no Direct Debit option for Powerball yet: The National Lottery says it will look to introduce one at a later date. Once bought, an entry can't be cancelled, apart from a few cases in shops such as a misprinted ticket. How to fill in a play slip is in how to play Powerball, and the official places to buy are in where to buy Powerball.

When the results come out

The winning numbers are known within minutes of the draw. The National Lottery publishes the results on its website from around 5am on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, and the video of the draw from around 6am, on its website and its YouTube channel. If you'd rather watch it live, the draw is streamed on powerball.com as it happens, at 3.59am UK time.

We publish the winning numbers on our results page as soon as they're out. To see whether you've won, enter your lines in the ticket checker; The National Lottery app can also scan a paper ticket, and any National Lottery retailer can check it for you. UK prizes below the jackpot depend on UK sales and the number of UK winners, so only The National Lottery's prize breakdown applies to UK tickets: the tiers are explained in Powerball prizes.

Where Powerball is drawn

Every Powerball draw takes place at the Florida Lottery's draw studio in Tallahassee, the state capital of Florida, where draws have been held since January 2012. Before that, they were held at Universal Studios in Orlando (2009 to 2011) and, until 2008, in Iowa.

Powerball isn't a Florida game, though. It belongs to the lotteries that sell it, which run it together through the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL). There's no separate UK draw: The National Lottery's rules say UK winners are decided by the results of the draw in the US, and the winning numbers are confirmed by MUSL. Allwyn's part starts after that: it counts the UK winners, works out the UK prizes and pays them.

How the numbers are drawn

1. One machine holds 69 white balls, numbered 1 to 69: the main numbers.
2. A second machine holds 26 red balls, numbered 1 to 26: the Powerballs.
3. Five white balls are drawn from the first machine. The order they come out in doesn't matter.
4. One red ball is drawn from the second machine: the Powerball.
5. Those 5 numbers and the Powerball decide every prize, in the UK and in the US.

Security is strict. The studio has four machines and several sets of balls, and which ones are used each night is chosen at random; the balls are weighed and X-rayed, handled with gloves and kept in sealed cases; cameras record the whole process; and an independent accounting firm observes every draw. A US multiplier called Power Play is drawn as well, but it doesn't apply to UK tickets.

Because the draw is in the US, MUSL decides what happens if something goes wrong: if a draw is declared invalid, it can hold another one, and MUSL or Allwyn can postpone a draw, for example if ticket sales have been seriously disrupted. MUSL says The National Lottery is subject to the same security standards and compliance reviews as the US lotteries.

Three draws a week, all year round

Three draws a week add up to 156 or 157 a year. Powerball was drawn twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday US time, until August 2021, when the Monday draw was added; that's why UK players have a Tuesday draw as well as Thursday and Sunday. The rest of the game's changes are in Powerball changes over the years.

The schedule doesn't stop for holidays: the $1.817 billion jackpot, the second-biggest ever, was drawn on Christmas Eve 2025, US time. Over Christmas and New Year many shops keep shorter hours, so buy in good time; online, the usual 11.55pm cut-off applies. And remember that each draw has its own 180 days to claim: see how to claim a Powerball prize.

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