Tickets for the world’s biggest jackpot game Powerball have gone on sale in the UK for the first time. The National Lottery’s Powerball allows UK players to pay £4 per line to compete with their US counterparts for shared jackpots that can reach billions of dollars, paid out over 30 years.
First Tickets Sold
Operator Allwyn confirmed that tickets are now available for the draw on Thursday, which currently stands at £300 million. The first UK Powerball ticket sold in a shop was at Sewell On The Go in Pocklington, York, just after 5am on Tuesday. The first online ticket was purchased on The National Lottery app by a player in Brighton at 5.54am.
Draw Details and Odds
Players have until 11.55pm on Wednesday to buy a ticket for the draw, which takes place at around 4am UK time on Thursday. Draws will occur three times a week from the Powerball studio in Florida. This is the first time the game—which produced a record-breaking jackpot of over 2.04 billion dollars in 2022—has operated outside the US, offering UK players uncapped jackpots starting at £12 million.
The UK game includes an extra “match two main numbers” prize tier, exclusive to UK players, offering a fixed prize of £8. The “match five main numbers” tier also offers a fixed prize of £1 million, while other UK prize tiers vary depending on the balls drawn and the number of winners. Overall odds of winning any prize in the UK are one in 14, and odds of winning the jackpot are approximately one in 292 million, according to Allwyn.
Expert Comment
Andy Carter, senior winners’ advisor at Allwyn, said: “I’ve seen first-hand how a big win can transform lives. But when people start imagining jackpots in the hundreds of millions of pounds, the conversation changes. People move beyond buying a bigger house or taking a dream holiday and start thinking about making a difference, whether that’s supporting loved ones, helping their local community, backing a cause they care about or turning a lifelong dream into reality. Powerball Money brings a whole new level of possibility to UK players. It’s a chance to win the biggest jackpot ever offered through The National Lottery and to dream bigger than ever before.”
National Lottery Changes
Powerball follows the National Lottery’s biggest overhaul of its draw-based Lotto game since its launch in 1994, with players now getting two chances to win for every £2 ticket. This change, rolled out from June 7, is expected to more than double the number of Lotto millionaires—from around 140 a year to about 345. It also follows the completion of a £450 million major tech upgrade, which involved moving 18 million player records and over three billion historical transactions to new platforms and transforming retail partner technology.
Sales and Good Causes
Latest figures from Allwyn show total National Lottery sales, including tickets bought in shops, reached £8.1 billion in 2025, up 3.5% on the previous year. More than £1.7 billion was generated for good causes, funding health, education, arts, sports heritage, and charitable causes, with £967 million raised in taxes.
