Tickets for world’s biggest jackpot game Powerball go on sale in UK

The National Lottery’s Powerball will see UK players pay £4 per line to compete with their US counterparts to win shared jackpots that can balloon to into the billions, which will be paid out over 30 years.

Operator Allwyn said tickets had gone on sale for the draw on Thursday, which is currently set at £300 million, with any winners paid out over 30 years.

It said the first UK Powerball ticket sold in a shop was at Sewell On The Go in Pocklington, York at just after 5am on Tuesday.

The first online ticket was bought on The National Lottery app by a player in Brighton at 5.54am.

Players have until 11.55pm on Wednesday to buy a ticket for the draw at around 4am UK time on Thursday.

Draws will take place three times a week from the Powerball studio in Florida.

It is the first time the game – which was behind the record-breaking jackpot worth more than 2.04 billion dollars won in 2022 – has operated outside of the US, offering UK players uncapped jackpots starting at £12 million.

The UK game features an extra “match two main numbers” prize tier, which is only available to UK players and offers a fixed prize of £8.

The “match five main numbers” tier also offers a fixed prize of £1 million while all other UK prize tiers will vary depending on the balls drawn and the number of winners.

The overall odds of winning any prize on Powerball in the UK are one in 14, while the odds of winning the jackpot prize are around one in 292 million, Allwyn said.

Andy Carter, senior winners’ advisor at Allwyn, said: “I’ve seen first-hand how a big win can transform lives. But when people start imagining jackpots in the hundreds of millions of pounds, the conversation changes.

“People move beyond buying a bigger house or taking a dream holiday and start thinking about making a difference, whether that’s supporting loved ones, helping their local community, backing a cause they care about or turning a lifelong dream into reality.

“Powerball Money brings a whole new level of possibility to UK players. It’s a chance to win the biggest jackpot ever offered through The National Lottery and to dream bigger than ever before.”

Powerball follows the National Lottery making the biggest overhaul to its draw-based Lotto game since its launch in 1994, with players being given two chances to win for every £2 ticket.

The change, which was rolled out from June 7, is expected to more than double the number of Lotto millionaires – from around 140 a year to about 345.

It also follows the recent completion of a £450 million major tech upgrade to the lottery, which involved moving 18 million player records and more than three billion historical transactions from old platforms to new ones, and transforming the technology used by retail partners.

Latest figures from Allwyn show total National Lottery sales, including lottery tickets bought in shops, came in at £8.1 billion in 2025, up 3.5% on the previous year.

More than £1.7 billion was generated for good causes, which incorporates funding for health, education, arts, sports heritage and charitable causes, and £967 million was raised in taxes.