From Tuesday, UK players will be able to buy a £4 ticket and compete for a slice of the world’s biggest lottery jackpot – currently sitting at $416m (£311m) – with the first draw on Thursday. The National Lottery’s Powerball, operated by Allwyn, marks the first time the game has been available outside the US, offering uncapped jackpots starting at £12m that can balloon into billions, paid out over 30 years.
If the jackpot rolls until Thursday’s opening draw, British entrants will have a chance to win it alongside their US counterparts. The UK version includes an extra “match two main numbers” prize tier – fixed at £8 – and a “match five main numbers” tier offering £1m, exclusive to UK players. Other prize tiers will vary depending on the balls drawn and the number of winners.
“Powerball launches in UK this week with £4 tickets and a £311m jackpot up for grabs in Thursday's first draw.”
“Powerball jackpots can soar into the billions, offering breathtaking sums with the potential to transform lives and communities,” said Allwyn chief executive Andria Vidler. “We’re encouraging players to get involved when tickets go on sale and we’ll be crossing our fingers for our first UK winner.”
The launch follows the biggest overhaul of the National Lottery’s draw-based Lotto game since 1994, rolled out from June 7, which gives players two chances to win for every £2 ticket and is expected to more than double the number of Lotto millionaires – from about 140 a year to about 345. It also comes after a £450m tech upgrade that moved 18 million player records and more than three billion historical transactions to new platforms.
Allwyn’s latest figures show total National Lottery sales reached £8.1bn in 2025, up 3.5% on the previous year, with more than £1.7bn generated for good causes – funding health, education, arts, sports, heritage and charitable projects – and £967m raised in taxes.
But the odds are longer than the regular National Lottery: players pick five numbers from 1-69 and one Powerball from 1-26, with overall odds of winning any prize at one in 14, compared with one in 4.9 for the UK Lotto. Ben Parker, a senior lecturer in statistics at Brunel University of London, warned: “Your long term fate is almost surely to lose. In the new Powerball you’ll win less often than the Euromillions or the old fashioned National Lottery, but if you do win you’ll win a bigger amount.”
