Powerball going international in effort to build larger jackpots
Powerball jumps the pond.
The lottery game that has made millionaires in the United States will expand this summer to include players from England, Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom.
An agreement was announced Tuesday between the Multi-State Lottery Association, which operates lottery play, and Allwyn UK, which operates the United Kingdom’s national lottery. The deal still needs to be approved by a UK gambling commission.
This will be the first time a lottery outside the United States has contributed to the Powerball jackpot.
“We are constantly looking for ways to ensure Powerball remains culturally and commercially relevant,” said Matt Strawn, who runs Powerball and is the chief executive officer of the Iowa Lottery. “And it’s really the next natural progression to get there.”
The same jackpot amount will be available to players on both sides of the Atlantic, with payouts in US dollars and UK pounds sterling.
For U.S. players, nothing changes, including the $2 cost of a Powerball ticket and the high jackpot odds of 1 in 292.2 million, Strawn said. But with UK players buying tickets, more players will increase jackpots faster.
“Players consistently tell us in survey after survey that they would like to see faster growth in Powerball jackpots,” Strawn said. “It is not surprising that as jackpots increase, the more people play the game in a particular drawing. The more people play, the more sales increase. As the sales increase, the jackpots increase, the more people play.”
For UK players, Powerball will offer a chance to win jackpots much larger than those currently available in lotteries across the country and Europe.
The largest Powerball payout was just over $2 billion for a ticket purchased in 2022 in California. EuroMillions, a lottery offered in nine European countries and also operated in the United Kingdom by Allwyn, paid out the largest prize to a British player of £195 million ($265 million) in 2022.
“Our ambition is to bring more games, more innovation and more excitement to the UK National Lottery – and there is nothing more exciting than Powerball, with its transformative jackpots and life-changing contribution to good causes,” Andria Vidler, managing director of Allwyn UK, said in a statement.
Although jackpots are the same in each country, estimated jackpot amounts will differ due to currency conversion rates and the fact that the US announces prize amounts before taxes while the UK does not.
Powerball jackpots in the UK will also be paid out over 30 years, while in the US jackpot winners have the choice of spreading their winnings over years via an annuity or in cash – almost all winners opt for cash.
All players will compete for the same jackpot, but the smaller prizes will be different in the two countries.
Powerball is played in 45 US states as well as Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
In the game, players choose numbers displayed on five white balls numbered 1 to 69 and a number 1 to 26 on the numbered red Powerball. Drawings will continue to take place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
More than 31 million people play at least one National Lottery game each year in the UK.
The new agreement will not change the way Mega Millions, the other major American lottery game, works.
