Powerball Expands to the UK: New Opportunities for Players

Tue Apr 14 2026 23:03:55 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

The popular lottery game Powerball will now allow players from the UK to participate, marking a significant expansion as it aims to increase jackpots with a larger player pool.

Powerball is set to extend its reach to the UK this summer, following an agreement with Allwyn UK. Players from England, Scotland, and beyond will now join in on the lottery's massive jackpots, with the potential for significantly larger prizes and faster growth due to an expanded player pool. The arrangement awaits approval from the UK gambling commission but promises to enhance the lottery experience for all participants while retaining existing gameplay for U.S. players.

Powerball is jumping the pond.

The lottery game that has made millionaires in the United States will expand this summer to include players in England, Scotland, and other parts of the United Kingdom.

An agreement was announced Tuesday between the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the lottery game, and Allwyn UK, which operates the U.K.'s National Lottery. The deal still must be approved by a U.K. gambling commission.

It will mark the first time a lottery outside the United States will contribute to the Powerball jackpot.

“We’re constantly looking for ways to make sure that we’re keeping Powerball culturally and commercially relevant,” said Matt Strawn, who heads Powerball and is chief executive of the Iowa Lottery. “And this really is the next natural progression in doing just that.”

The same jackpot amount will be available to players on both sides of the Atlantic with U.S. payouts in dollars and those in the U.K. in pounds.

For players in the U.S., nothing changes, including the $2 cost of a Powerball ticket and the long odds of winning the jackpot of 1 in 292.2 million, Strawn said. But with U.K. players buying tickets, the larger player pool will help grow jackpots more quickly.

“Players consistently tell us in survey after survey that faster growing Powerball jackpots is what they’d like to see,” Strawn added. “The more people play, the higher sales grow. The higher sales grow, the higher the jackpots get, the more people play.”

For U.K. players, Powerball will offer a chance at much larger jackpots than are currently available at lotteries in the country and Europe.

The largest Powerball payout was just over $2 billion from a ticket bought in 2022 in California. EuroMillions, offered across nine European countries and operated in the U.K. by Allwyn, paid the biggest prize to a U.K. player of £195 million ($265 million) in 2022.

“Our ambition is to bring more games, more innovation, and more excitement to The UK National Lottery — and it doesn’t get more exciting than Powerball, with its transformative jackpots and life-changing contribution to good causes,” Allwyn UK Chief Executive Andria Vidler said in a statement.

According to the arrangement, U.K. Powerball jackpots will be paid over 30 years, whereas in the U.S., winners can opt for cash or an annuity, with most opting for cash.

Powerball is played in 45 U.S. states as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Players choose numbers from five white balls numbered 1 to 69 and one number from 1 to 26 on the red Powerball. Drawings will continue to be held on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.

This new agreement won’t change how Mega Millions, the other large U.S. lottery game, operates.