Powerball prizes and payouts

All Powerball prize tiers

Prizes are for a $2 play with no Power Play. If the jackpot is not won, it rolls over, grows and sells more tickets. If more than one ticket wins, the jackpot is shared.

What Power Play does to each prize

Power Play adds $1 per play and multiplies non-jackpot prizes by a randomly drawn multiplier of 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10, with the 10x only possible when the advertised jackpot is at or below a certain amount. The $1 million prize is always doubled to $2 million with Power Play, regardless of the multiplier. For example, a $100 prize with a 3x multiplier becomes $300. Power Play never applies to the jackpot.

• $4 prizes become $8 to $40.
• $7 prizes become $14 to $70.
• $100 prizes become $200 to $1,000.
• $50,000 prizes become $100,000 to $500,000.

Most winning tickets win very little

Because the smallest tiers are by far the most common, the overall odds of 1 in 24.87 overstate how often you win real money. About 1 in 38 plays wins the $4 Powerball-only prize and 1 in 92 wins $4 with one white ball and the Powerball. About 1 in 580 wins $7 for three white balls. Add those up and roughly 998 of every 1,000 winning tickets pay just $4 or $7, so "winning something" usually means getting back a little more than the ticket cost, and a net profit from small prizes alone is rare.

How the jackpot is paid

The jackpot is advertised as an annuity: 30 payments, one immediately and one each year for 29 years, each 5% bigger than the last. The first payment is only about 1.5% of the total. The cash option pays a single, smaller amount now, set by the lottery on the draw date. For a $500 million jackpot the cash option might be around $230 million.

If a winner chooses the annuity and dies before the end, the remaining prize is paid to their estate. Compare the two with our lump sum vs annuity calculator.

What you keep after tax

Winnings are taxable income. Federal tax of 24% is withheld on prizes above $5,000, and a large prize is taxed at up to 37%. State tax applies in most states. On a $500 million advertised jackpot, a single filer taking the cash option in a state with no income tax would keep roughly $145 million to $150 million. Use the Powerball tax calculator, and see the full explanation in our lottery taxes complete guide.

Sharing the jackpot

When several tickets match, the jackpot is split equally. The more tickets sold, the higher the chance of a split, which is why very large jackpots are shared more often than you might expect. This is another reason a bigger jackpot is not as valuable per ticket as it looks, and why spreading your numbers outside dates (1 to 31) can help avoid sharing.

Claiming

Small prizes can be claimed at retailers. Bigger prizes need to be claimed at a lottery office or by mail, with the signed ticket and ID. Deadlines are set by the state where the ticket was bought. Read what to do after you win before claiming a large prize.

Example: what a $100 prize really leaves

A $100 prize, such as matching four white balls, is taxable income. For prizes of $5,000 or less no federal tax is withheld, but you are expected to report the win on your return and pay tax at your rate, so a $100 prize might leave about $76 to $78 for someone in the 22% to 24% bracket. A $50,000 prize triggers 24% withholding of $12,000, and the final tax depends on your income. See our lottery tax calculator.

How the jackpot grows

The advertised jackpot starts at a base amount, $20 million for Powerball, and grows with each draw that has no jackpot winner, funded by ticket sales. Part of every ticket sale goes to the jackpot pool and the rest is spread across prizes, retailer commissions and state beneficiaries. Because sales surge when the jackpot is large, big jackpots become bigger quickly, and the same dynamic increases the chance of sharing a win.