Powerball Odds and Payouts (September 2026)
Every prize tier, its real odds, and — the part nobody else publishes — what each one contributes to what a $2 ticket is actually worth.
Every prize tier
| Match | Odds | Prize | Worth per ticket | Share of return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 + Powerball | 1 in 292,201,338 | Jackpot | varies | — |
| 5 | 1 in 11,688,054 | $1,000,000 | $0.09 | 27% |
| 4 + Powerball | 1 in 913,129 | $50,000 | $0.05 | 17% |
| 4 | 1 in 36,525 | $100 | $0.00 | 1% |
| 3 + Powerball | 1 in 14,494 | $100 | $0.01 | 2% |
| 3 | 1 in 579.76 | $7 | $0.01 | 4% |
| 2 + Powerball | 1 in 701.33 | $7 | $0.01 | 3% |
| 1 + Powerball | 1 in 91.98 | $4 | $0.04 | 14% |
| 0 + Powerball | 1 in 38.32 | $4 | $0.10 | 33% |
| All fixed prizes | 1 in 24.87 | — | $0.32 | 100% |
What the jackpot is worth — and why it is less than it looks
What the jackpot adds depends on tonight's number — but it is not simply the jackpot times the odds. Three things cut it down:
- The advertised figure is an annuity. Taking the money now is worth about 50% of it.
- Tax. Federal withholding starts at 24% and the top marginal rate is higher; most states take more. Our calculator does this properly.
- Sharing. A big jackpot sells more tickets, and more tickets means a real chance somebody else picked your line too. At a billion dollars there are roughly 180 million tickets in play, so a winner keeps about 75% of it on average.
| Advertised jackpot | Cash value | Tickets in play (est.) | Your share if you win | Ticket worth (before tax) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $40 million | $20 million | 10M | 98% | $0.39 |
| $100 million | $50 million | 15M | 97% | $0.49 |
| $250 million | $125 million | 30M | 95% | $0.73 |
| $500 million | $250 million | 63M | 90% | $1.09 |
| $750 million | $375 million | 113M | 83% | $1.38 |
| $1.00 billion | $500 million | 180M | 75% | $1.60 |
| $1.50 billion | $750 million | 363M | 57% | $1.79 |
| $2.00 billion | $1.00 billion | 547M | 45% | $1.87 |
Ticket-sales figures are estimates fitted to published sales at known jackpot levels, not official numbers — they are the one genuinely uncertain input here, and only the sharing column depends on them. Everything else is exact arithmetic on the published prize table. The formulas are on our methodology page.
How this compares with a scratcher
A $2 Powerball ticket returns 16 cents on the dollar in fixed prizes. Scratchers publish enough detail for us to compute the same figure for every game on sale, and the answer is consistently much higher — because a scratcher has no jackpot soaking up the prize pool. Right now the best in Massachusetts returns 98 cents. See every Massachusetts ticket ranked.
That is not an argument for switching — a scratcher has no jackpot, and the jackpot is what people are buying. It is just the trade, stated plainly.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot?
- 1 in 292,201,338. You must match all 5 main numbers and the powerball.
- What are the odds of winning anything on Powerball?
- 1 in 24.87. Bear in mind that the most common win by far is the smallest prize — matching the powerball alone, at 1 in 38.32.
- How much is a Powerball ticket actually worth?
- Excluding the jackpot, $0.32 per $2 ticket — 16 cents on the dollar. Adding the jackpot at a typical $300 million level takes it to about $0.80. It reaches break-even only at jackpots so large that the ticket sales they attract make sharing likely.
- Does a bigger jackpot make a ticket a better bet?
- Better, but not proportionally. Going from $100 million to $1.00 billion — ten times the jackpot — raises a ticket's expected value by roughly 3.3 times, not ten, because the sales that build a jackpot that big also mean roughly a 25% chance of splitting it.