The American Powerball is known the world over for its record-breaking jackpots. When it comes to lotteries, it makes sense that the biggest jackpots tend to come with the lowest odds, but do you actually know what the odds of winning US Powerball are? Why not hazard a guess, and then keep on reading to see how right - or wrong - you were.
There's more to the US Powerball than its jackpt. In fact, the jackpot makes up only one of Powerball's nine prize divisions. The overall chances of winning Powerball prizes are 1 in 24.87, and the odds only go down from there, starting with the 9th division prize's 1:38 odds.
You can see the full Powerball odds breakdown for every prize in the table below:
Jackpot
5+PB
1:292,201,338
2nd Prize
5
1:11,688,053
3rd Prize
4+PB
1:913,129
4th Prize
4
1:36,525
5th Prize
3+PB
1:14,494
6th Prize
3
1:579
7th Prize
2+PB
1:701
8th Prize
1+PB
1:92
9th Prize
0+PB
1:38
Of course, besides the regular numbers and the Powerball number, there's also the drawing of the Power Play number which has its own odds and chances. To find out more, check out our guide on the Power Play prize multiplier.
As you can see in the table above, the odds of winning US Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338, but one slightly unintuitive thing to keep in mind is that the chances of matching winning numbers remain identical for every draw. This goes for all prize divisions, so the odds of winning a non-jackpot prize are the same in every draw regardless of the amount of people playing, or the amount of players who win a non-jackpot prize. When it comes to the jackpot, however, the winnings are split between all players who match the five regular numbers plus the Powerball number. That means that the odds winning the full jackpot amount vary draw by draw since more people playing increases the odds of a split first prize.
Now that you know whether you were right or wrong about the odds of winning US Powerball you can check out all our other top international lotteries on offer. If you're interested in even more Powerball information, we also have an in-depth comparison between American and Australian Powerball.
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