Powerball in the UK: what does it mean for your chances of winning?

Powerball, the world’s biggest jackpot game, comes to the UK

Tickets for the world’s biggest jackpot game, Powerball, have gone on sale in the UK for the first time. 

Founded in the US in 1992, Powerball is the world's biggest rolling jackpot game.

The game invites players to select five white numbers from 1 to 69, and one red ‘Powerball’ number from 1 to 26. To win the jackpot, players must match all six drawn numbers.

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.

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 July 21st, 2026.

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

The National Lottery’s Powerball will see UK players pay £4 per line to compete with American players to win shared jackpots that can swell into the billions. 

Yes, with the continuous rollover mechanic of Powerball, it is entirely possible that someone could land a NINE-FIGURE jackpot. Of course, that is an American billion, not a ten-figure British one, but surely a hundred million is enough of a prize for anyone?

Given that Powerball jackpots are paid out over 30 years it's not guaranteed that a jackpot of that size would even get fully spent... What would you do with 30 slices of a jackpot that size?

The current and expected jackpot is a rather more modest (!) 416 million US dollars (£311 million), which could be won by a British player for the first time.

But what are the chances? More importantly what are your chances?

The odds of matching all of the six numbers required to hit the full Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338. It's fair to say that the chances are slim...

For comparison, the odds of scooping the jackpot on the Lotto from The National Lottery are a rather healthier 1 in 22,528,738. That's over 10 times more likely.

And speaking of healthier odds, your chances of bagging a jackpot on The Big Win from The Health Lottery are more than ten times better again at 1 in 2,118,760.

And if you play our All or Nothing game, that boasts Britain's best overall lottery odds, the jackpot odds drop (or climb, depending on how you look at it) to 1 in 1,352,078.

Of course, the jackpot amounts do vary somewhat, and if Britons appetite for EuroMillions, also run by The National Lottery in the UK is anything to go by, we're happy to chance our arm at relatively small chances of winning truly astronomical sums.

The “match five main numbers” tier additionally 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 therefore one in 14, with a £4 ticket price.

Players have until 11.55pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays to buy a ticket for the draw at around 4am UK time on the following days.

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

Powerball arriving on these shores doesn't alter which lotteries are easiest to win, but it could change the personnel in The Sunday Times Rich List... Watch this space.