Powerball

Powerball is the biggest lottery played across the USA and offers the biggest payouts in the world, regularly featuring a jackpot over $100 million and setting the record for the biggest lottery jackpot ever at $2.04 billion in November 2022. Mississippi became the 48th jurisdiction to offer Powerball when it joined the game on January 30th 2020.

Powerball drawings take place three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday nights at 22:59 EST (21:59 CDT) in Tallahassee, Florida, 430 miles away from Jackson, Mississippi. Ticket sales close an hour before the draw time on the night of each draw, then reopen after the balls have been drawn and the number of winners has been calculated.

Playing Powerball in Mississippi

You can play Powerball at any official retailer in Mississippi or one of the other 47 jurisdictions. Choose five main numbers from a pool of 69 along with one Powerball number from a pool of 26 for each line entered into a drawing. You can either choose your own numbers or have a Quick Pick ticket created for you, which randomly chooses the five main numbers and Powerball. Tickets cost $2 per line.

Tickets must be purchased by 21:59 EST (20:59 CDT) on the draw nights of Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. To avoid potential disappointment, it is suggested that you buy your ticket well in advance of the ticket cut-off time if the jackpot is high or on draw nights as the demand for tickets often sees queues out the doors of retailers and players missing out on buying their entries.

You can also add the Double Play option for an extra $1 per play.

Prizes

The Powerball jackpot starts at a minimum of $20 million for the draw after there is a jackpot winner. As there is no cap on what the jackpot can reach, it will keep rising after each draw until someone matches all five main numbers and the Powerball.

Each draw offers a total of nine prize tiers, starting at winning $4 for matching just the Powerball. See the table below for the prize tiers, along with the odds of winning in that tier.

Power Play

You can also opt for the Power Play option which multiplies any non-jackpot prizes by 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x or even 10x. All you have to do is indicate on your playslip that you want to add the Power Play option and any payouts will be multiplied by the Power Play number drawn. This option costs an additional $1 per line.

The 10x multiplier is only available when the jackpot is below $150 million, and Match 5 winnings can only be doubled to a maximum of $2million regardless of which Power Play number is drawn.

The table below shows the payouts for Power Play prizes:

The Power Play is drawn in a similar fashion to the main balls. One ball numbered between 2 and 10 will be drawn from a pool of 42, or 43 when the jackpot is below $150 million. The chosen ball will represent either a 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x or 10x multiplier, with the lower multipliers representing a higher proportion of the potential ball pool.

Double Play

If you add the Double Play option to your ticket, at a cost of $1 per play, your numbers are entered into a separate draw that takes place immediately after the main one.

Just like the main draw, there are nine ways to win. In fact, many of the prize values are higher. The jackpot is worth $10 million in every draw, so it does not increase if nobody wins.

The table below shows all the prize amounts. The odds of winning are exactly the same as for the main draw.