Powerball in the UK vs the US: what's the same and what's different

UK and US Powerball side by side

What's the same

• The draw. There's one Powerball draw, in Tallahassee, Florida, and UK winners are decided by its results. UK and US players have exactly the same numbers to match.
• The numbers. Five main numbers from 1 to 69 and a Powerball from 1 to 26, chosen yourself or at random: a Lucky Dip in the UK, a Quick Pick in the US.
• The jackpot. UK and US sales feed one jackpot, and when it's won it's split equally between every jackpot-winning entry on both sides of the Atlantic. Each UK line pays the same fixed dollar amount into it as a US ticket.
• The odds. 1 in 292,201,338 for the jackpot, wherever you buy, and the same odds for every tier the two countries have in common.
• The security rules. The draw follows MUSL's procedures, and The National Lottery is subject to the same security standards and compliance reviews as the US lotteries.

Everything else, from the price to the way the jackpot is paid, is set separately. Legally, the UK game is a National Lottery game of its own that uses the US draw and shares the US jackpot; The National Lottery calls the American game “US Powerball”.

Why a line costs £4 in the UK and $2 in the US

The Gambling Commission describes the £4 price as “a commercial decision” by Allwyn. A UK line also pays for different things from a US ticket:

• The jackpot contribution. Each UK line puts the same fixed dollar amount into the shared jackpot as a $2 US ticket; the game's licence puts it at about 13.6% of UK sales, depending on the exchange rate.
• UK-only prizes. Every prize below the jackpot is paid from UK sales alone, including the £8 Match 2 tier that US players don't have. On average 41.2% of UK sales goes to prizes, jackpot included.
• UK good causes. Over 30% of every £4 line goes to National Lottery good causes in the UK, and none to US causes. Allwyn expects Powerball to raise about £1 billion more for UK good causes over its first five years.
• Lottery Duty and retailers. 12% of sales goes to the government in Lottery Duty, and shops earn 20p for every line they sell.

Nothing changed for US players when the UK joined: their ticket is still $2, with the same odds and prizes. Where the UK money goes is covered in Powerball and good causes.

Prizes: the UK tiers and the US tiers

The jackpot is the only prize UK and US players share. Below it, each country has its own prize table. In the US most prizes are fixed amounts in dollars. In the UK, Match 5 pays a fixed £1 million and Match 2 a fixed £8, while the other seven tiers share a percentage of UK sales between UK winners, so they change from draw to draw. The National Lottery's estimates and the US prizes compare like this:

The US prizes are without Power Play, which multiplies them by up to 10 times for $1 more (Match 5 then pays $2 million); in California every prize is shared rather than fixed. Thanks to Match 2, a UK line wins something about 1 in 13 times by The National Lottery's own tier odds (it quotes 1 in 14), against 1 in 24.9 in the US. What each UK tier has actually paid is in Powerball prizes.

The jackpot: one prize, two very different headlines

The jackpot is the same prize, but the two countries advertise it in completely different ways, which is why the UK figure always looks much smaller. In the US it's quoted in dollars, before tax, as an annuity, with a lower cash value alongside. In the UK it's quoted in pounds, after UK tax at the highest rate, as the total a winner can expect to receive over 30 years, at the exchange rate when it's advertised. For example, for the draw of Sunday 1 November 2026 The National Lottery advertised £404 million, while the US advertised the same jackpot as $760 million, or $326 million in cash.

If a UK ticket and a US ticket share the jackpot, MUSL splits its cash value equally between them and sends the UK half to Allwyn, which pays it to the UK winner over 30 years: a first payment of 1% or 2% of the jackpot prize fund, chosen by the winner, then a 29-year annuity with payments rising every year. A US winner chooses between 30 payments rising by 5% a year and a one-off cash payment. A UK winner can only take a lump sum in a few exceptional cases set out in the rules, such as a winner who isn't a UK or Isle of Man resident when claiming, and then it's less than the advertised jackpot.

After every win the jackpot starts again at around £10–12 million in the UK, depending on the exchange rate, and about $20 million in the US. How it grows and how it's paid is in the Powerball jackpot.

Buying, claiming and tax

In the UK, Powerball is sold only by The National Lottery, online and in its shops in the UK and the Isle of Man, to people aged 18 or over. To play online you must live in the UK or the Isle of Man and be there when you buy; visitors can buy in a shop but must come back to claim, because prizes aren't sent abroad. Prizes are paid only by Allwyn, only on entries bought in the UK or the Isle of Man, and must be claimed within 180 days. National Lottery prizes are tax-free; for the jackpot, the first payment isn't taxed, while the interest part of the annuity payments is. No winner has to go public.

In the US, each lottery sells its own tickets and pays its own prizes, under its own rules. You don't have to be American to buy a ticket while you're there, but a US ticket stays a US ticket: any prize is claimed from the lottery that sold it, within its deadline, and US federal tax and, in most states, state tax apply. The National Lottery won't pay out on it.

From the UK you can also bet on the result of the US draw with a betting company licensed by the Gambling Commission, such as Lottofy, where our Play buttons take you. That's a bet, not a National Lottery ticket: any winnings are paid by that company under its own terms, following the US prize table, and the money doesn't go to UK good causes. Both options are in where to buy Powerball, and claiming a National Lottery prize is explained in how to claim a Powerball prize.

Why Powerball came to the UK

The deal was announced on 14 April 2026 by Allwyn and MUSL together. For the US lotteries the main aim was a bigger player base: “as more people play, the faster jackpots grow”, in the words of Matt Strawn, chair of the Powerball Product Group, without changing the $2 price or the odds. MUSL's second goal was to “strengthen the long-term sustainability of the game and the good causes it supports”.

For Allwyn, Powerball was part of a promise “to bring more games, more entertainment and more innovation to The National Lottery”, and of its goal of doubling what The National Lottery raises for good causes from £30 million to £60 million a week by 2034. The Gambling Commission, which licensed the game, called it “a clear sign of Allwyn's ambition to innovate The National Lottery in order to raise Returns to Good Causes and one that we have welcomed”.

It was a first for Powerball: The National Lottery is the first lottery outside the US to contribute to the jackpot, taking the number of lotteries that pool their money from 48 to 49. The full story is in the history of Powerball.

Where Powerball is sold in the US

In the US, Powerball is sold by 48 lotteries: 45 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The five states without it are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah. The game began in 1992 with 15 lotteries; the US Virgin Islands joined in 2002, Puerto Rico in 2014 and Mississippi, the most recent, in 2020.

Each US lottery sets its own rules. The minimum age is 18 in most places, but 19 in Nebraska and 21 in Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana and Mississippi; only some states sell online, and only to players inside the state; Power Play is sold everywhere except California, and Double Play only in some states. The money each lottery keeps stays at home: according to MUSL, on average 35% of every $2 ticket funds public programmes in the state that sold it, and Powerball has raised an estimated $38 billion for US good causes since 1992.

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