How Do You Win Powerball? Understanding How Powerball Works

Gas? Check. $80 million winning lottery ticket? Check!

How do you win Powerball? Apparently, buying multiple tickets is a great way to tip the odds in your favor! 

Phillip Chippewa was just going to get some groceries and gas, and his usual Powerball ticket. Normally, he would only buy 1 ticket, but this time he decided to go ahead and get 4 plays. The same night Phillip bought his 4 plays, he became the winner of an $80 million jackpot!

Can you imagine, looking at your bank account, and seeing all those gorgeous zero’s? Powerball drawings happen twice every week, yet many would-be players end up missing out, just because they don’t know how the game works.

Are you ready to bring home a jackpot and change your life forever? Read on to find out everything you need to know about Powerball.

How Do You Win Powerball like a Pro?

Do you have $2 to spare? Then you can play Powerball! While all lottery games involve luck, the better you understand the odds, the easier it can be to tip them in your favor. Here are the Powerball basics you’ll need to learn the answer to the question, “how do you win Powerball?”:

• Powerball Odds
• How the game works
• Where and how you can play
• 9 ways to win

Let’s jump right in by looking at how likely it is that you’ll be able to win Powerball, and when’s the best time for you to play.

Powerball Odds

You can play Powerball any time of the year and it won’t affect your chances of winning at all! Powerball is a nationally played game, but that doesn’t mean ticket sales will affect your odds of winning.

Instead, Powerball ticket sales can only help the player, by increasing the amount they could potentially win. The number of tickets sold doesn’t affect your odds of being able to walk away with a prize.

When you play Powerball you have a 1 in 24.9 chance of winning a prize. This means your odds of winning a prize are the same, no matter what the jackpot amount is. Your 1 in 24.9 chance of winning stays the same whether the jackpot is $40 million or $1 billion.

How Powerball Works

If you’re intimidated by numbers, you’ll be happy to know that getting a Powerball ticket doesn’t involve any math at all. Instead, all you need to do is select 6 numbers, it’s that simples. Here’s a breakdown of how to play Powerball:

•  Pick 5 numbers from 1-69
•  Pick 1 number from 1 to 26
• Decide if you want to Power Play

This game is so easy to play, the steps above are the only ones you need to know! When you select your 5 numbers, they’ll be for the white balls in the drawing. When you pick a number from 1-26, it’ll be for a red ball. The red ball is the Powerball, and it affects the type of prize you’re eligible to win.

Getting Your Powerball Ticket

While you don’t have to memorize these Powerball facts, the more you know, the easier it’ll be for you to get a good ticket. You can play Powerball in 44 of the United States, the US Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico! 

Drawing Times

Powerball’s so well-liked that drawings happen every single week. If you miss the drawing, don’t worry! You can go online to get the Powerball numbers.

There’s one drawing each night and they occur during different times of the week. The weekly drawings occur on Wednesday and Saturday night promptly at 10:59 p.m. ET.

Picking Your Numbers

When you go to play, you’ll have 2 options for how to get your ticket. First, you can pick the numbers yourself, and manually fill out a play slip.

Many veteran lottery players swear by the importance of picking the numbers yourself. The idea is that you can choose numbers that “feel” lucky to you, to make the gaming experience even more fun! The other option is that you can have a lottery terminal randomly choose your numbers for you.

Double Your Winnings

You can upgrade your ticket to “Power Play”. Doing this means that your cash prize will double. The Power Play only applies to winnings that aren’t the grand prize jackpot.

The cut-off time to buy your ticket tends to be 1-2 hours before the drawings. The exact cut off time for you will depend on the selling jurisdiction of the place you’re buying the ticket at.

Multiple Ways to Win

After you have your lottery ticket, all you have to do is wait for them to draw the numbers. Once they draw the numbers, you’ll have a total of 9 ways you can win. Here are the 9 winning possibilities:

1.  Match 5 white numbers + Powerball: Grand prize jackpot
2.  Match 5 white numbers: $1 million
3.  Match 4 out of 5 white numbers + Powerball: $50,000
4.  Match 4 white numbers: $100
5.  Match 3 white numbers + Powerball: $100
6.  Match 3 white numbers: $7
7. Match 2 white numbers + Powerball: $7
8. Match 1 white number + Powerball: $4
9.  Powerball: $4

As you can see, the prizes range from barely noticeable, to life-changing funds.

See Yourself as a Winner

Now you know the answer to the question, “how do you win Powerball?.” All you’ll need is $2, a couple of minutes to get your ticket, and access to the winning numbers once they’re drawn.

Yet, knowing how to win is only half the fun of playing lottery games. We find that visualizing your win, and thinking about how you’d spend the money, can make playing Powerball 3x as exciting.

What would you do with $40 million or how about $5 billion? Would you leave your job, or invest in your very own business?

Luckily, you don’t have to wait to win the lottery to start building a company you can be proud of. Go ahead and check out our Small Business Articles, and find out how many entrepreneurs are making their dreams a reality, on a budget!