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Sign up to have the winning numbers sent directly to your e-mail address. |
| Greetings Gentle Reader,
Here are the answers to the 30 most common questions. PLEASE browse through the information below to find your answers right now. We get a lot of mail (up to one a minute during a big jackpot). By checking below, you get your answer faster and we can get to the rare new questions faster too. If your question is one of the very few not answered here, you can click the link at the bottom of the page to send us your question.
MY EMAILS HAVE STOPPED; YOU NEVER RESPOND TO ME; STOP SENDING ME SPAM!!! We do send out an email with the numbers drawn after every Wednesday and Saturday draw - but only to persons who have signed up to receive them. If you stopped receiving them, it is likely because your Internet provider has blocked us. When we are aware of an ISP blocking us, we try to work with them to whitelist us. But the ISP will respond to you better than to us. Comcast.net, Juno.com, and Yahoo.com seem to have occasional problems since they replace servers and forget to whitelist us on that server. If the message to you happens to go to that server, then it fails. Recently we got back on with ATT (sbcglobal.net) and Bellsouth. If you are not getting our email and try to sign up again, you will either succeed in signing up again or you will be told that you are already signed up. If you can sign up again, that means that our system has dropped you from the list because your ISP has rejected our email. We don't want to keep sending email to an address that rejects us or we will be treated as a spammer. If you are told that you are already signed up, then our emails are probably getting moved to a "junk mail" or "spam" folder by your email program. Check there and mark it as "not junk". If you want to whitelist us in your program (or with your ISP) you may need to know that our emails come from "pbinfo@elists.MUSL.com" We respond to every letter. If you did not get a response, it is because your Internet provider has blocked us. Our beautiful prose sent to you bounces back to us - very frustrating for us and we are helpless to respond to your complaints about us not responding. We do not send out spam. You must sign up to receive our emails. We only send out an email with the numbers and jackpot amount after every Wednesday and Saturday draw. Every email contains a link that allows you to drop off the list. There are pond scum out there who "spoof" our email address and send out spam. We cannot stop them. These ne'er-do-wells could just as easily send out spam using your email address. The only thing that we send out are the winning numbers and jackpot amounts after every Wednesday and Saturday draw. Anything else is not from us.
WHAT ARE THE WAYS TO WIN? You can see a chart here: http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_prizes.asp
DO I HAVE TO MATCH THE NUMBERS IN THE EXACT ORDER DRAWN? No. The tickets print the white ball numbers (the first five numbers) in numerical order. You can match the first five white ball numbers drawn in any order. The red Powerball number on your ticket (the last number, often behind a "PB") must match the red Powerball number drawn. You cannot cross lines. You cannot use numbers on other tickets or the tickets of a friend or even a close relative.
WHAT DOES POWERBALL COST TO PLAY? It costs $1 for a single play for one drawing. To add the Power Play multiplier, it costs an additional $1 for each play. You can learn more at: http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_howtoplay.asp
WHERE CAN I WATCH THE DRAWING? Powerball draws can be seen on nearly 100 TV stations nation-wide. Check here: http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_stations.asp
MY NUMBERS ARE: XX-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX; DID I WIN? You can check your numbers on the web site. Please go to: http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_numbers.asp
HOW DO I CLAIM MY PRIZE? CAN I CLAIM OUT OF STATE? You can generally claim a prize of under $600 at any retailer in the state where you bought the ticket, but be advised that some retailers will not carry the cash needed to pay higher prizes. Sometimes, a convenience store that has safety concerns may not carry the cash. Each state lottery has its own central computer system. There are about seven different system platforms operated by three different vendors in a highly competitive market. The state lottery systems are not interconnected. As powerful and as fast as computers are, you might imagine the power and cost needed to develop a system in each state to record and store play numbers for the entire claim period for all states and that is always connected to every other state so each state is instantly aware of plays made and cashed. A system of transferring money back and forth between states would also have to be maintained as states cash each other’s tickets. While this system would be convenient for the rare player who travels, the vast majority of winning tickets are purchased by someone who is close to the lottery terminal where it was purchased. You do NOT have to cash the ticket at the same store, but you do have to cash the ticket in the same state. You can also claim any prize - and prizes over $600 - at the state lottery headquarters. You can even claim winning tickets by mail. Click on a state at the map link below to find the address and possibly a claim form: http://www.powerball/powerball/pb_map.asp
WHERE CAN I FIND OLD NUMBERS?
You can search for a particular set of numbers over a specific period
here:
You just get a list of numbers here:
Look around the numbers page:
CAN I BUY POWERBALL TICKETS THROUGH THE INTERNET? No, at least not in the way that you might hope. Powerball tickets can only legally be purchased at a state lottery sales terminal in the lottery jurisdictions that sells the Powerball game. A lottery can legally sell tickets on the Internet, but only to persons within its own state. No one can sell lottery tickets by mail or over the Internet across state lines or the U.S. national border. No one. Not even us. No one. No, not even that vendor. Or that one. You really don't need to send me questions about a specific site. Like all others, it cannot legally sell lottery tickets across a state border or the U.S. border. No. Any Internet lottery site that purports to sell Powerball tickets, or “shares” of Powerball tickets to purchasers or to run a “service” for you, is operating illegally. They are not authorized by the Multi-State Lottery Association or by any U.S. lottery. There are legal Internet sales of lottery tickets in some states or countries, but only within the borders of that state/country or by agreement between nations. The United States has no agreements with any other nation to allow lottery tickets sales across the national border. The laws of your state prohibit the purchase of another state’s lottery ticket across state lines. Federal laws also make out-of-state lottery plays across a state line illegal. But note that you can legally travel to another state, buy a ticket, and bring it back to your home state. Most countries prohibit the purchase of lottery tickets across their border. the United States does. No. If it ever does become legal, we will sell tickets here for $1. No.
CAN I PLAY POWERBALL FROM OUTSIDE THE STATE OR THE U.S.? CAN A NON-RESIDENT WIN POWERBALL? A Powerball ticket must be purchased only from a terminal operated by a licensed retailer in a state that sells the Powerball game. If you legally purchase a Powerball ticket, you can play the game and you can collect prizes. You do not have to be a citizen or a resident to play the game. You can be a tourist. That said, some states (MD, NC, ND) do have rules that seem to imply that a winner must produce evidence of citizenship or a federal SSN, but there are other ways to hold back taxes for a winner who does not have a U.S. SSN.
ARE SUBSCRIPTIONS, FUTURE PLAYS, OR MULTI-DRAWS AVAILABLE? Subscription plays are off-line purchases that usually include an automatic payment or repurchase option. They are usually offered for up to one year. Federal law prohibits the sale of this type of purchase across a state line, since it involves automatic purchases. A few Powerball states (ND, NH, ME, VT) do offer subscription sales, but you do have to be a resident of that state (and use a local address) to buy a subscription play. You can check the web sites for those states to play by subscription. Multi-draws can be purchased by anyone (of legal age) at the retailer terminal in the lottery jurisdiction and can be carried out of the jurisdiction (unless there is a law in your jurisdiction against possessing a lottery ticket). The number of multi-draws varies by state. Here is the most recent list that we have (note that one week is two draws). These can also change from time to time. Arizona-5 weeks; Arkansas - ?; Colorado-13 weeks; Connecticut-13 weeks; DC-10 weeks; Delaware-5 weeks; Florida-26 weeks; Iowa-5 weeks; Idaho-5 weeks; Indiana-5 weeks; Kansas-7.5 weeks; Kentucky-13 weeks; Louisiana-10 weeks; Maine-10 weeks; Minnesota-7 weeks; Missouri-7 1/2 weeks; Montana-12 weeks; Nebraska-12 weeks; New Hampshire-10 weeks; New Mexico-5 weeks; North Carolina-13 weeks; North Dakota-4 1/2 weeks; Oklahoma-5 weeks; Oregon-2 weeks; Pennsylvania-13 weeks; Rhode Island-13 weeks; South Carolina-10 weeks; South Dakota-4 1/2 weeks; Tennessee-5 weeks; Virgin Islands-5 weeks; Vermont-10 weeks; Wisconsin-4 weeks; West Virginia-12 weeks. Future plays are used to make a purchase for a drawing at some time in the future - skipping draws until that future date. Futures draws are not available in all jurisdictions. Check with your local lottery. You can check the map for links to your lottery: http://www.powerball/powerball/pb_map.asp
DO POWERBALL TICKETS EXPIRE? Yes. Nothing lasts forever. Ticket expiration periods vary from state to state - from 90 days to one year. They may also change from time to time. The back of your ticket will often give the expiration period for your state. If it is not on the back of your ticket, you might check with your state lottery by using the map. For obvious reasons, we don't want to give you wrong information about the time frame for cashing tickets with your lottery. In rare cases, your elected officials will change the expiration date (sometimes they run out of other stuff to vote on). they may shorten it and you may find an old brochure with a longer claim period. Often the lottery will honor your ticket in such a case, but if you plan to wait longer than 90 days to claim a big prize, you might just call up the lottery or go to the online site and double check on the expiration period.
WHAT TIME AND WHERE IS THE DRAWING? The drawing is held at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time [9:59 Central; 8:59 p.m. Mountain; 7:59 p.m. Pacific] in Orlando, Florida. Occasionally, the multi-state lottery games go on the road and are drawn during special events around the nation, but most of the time the numbers are drawn at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. The numbers are drawn in the presence of multi-state lottery draw officials, an independent auditor and a security official. The draw equipment is kept in a double-locked alarmed vault (we can't even get into it unless the auditors are present). The balls sets are also sealed by the auditors and all events are audio and video recorded when the vault is opened. The equipment is tested regularly (measurements, X-ray and statistical tests for non-random behavior). The live drawings are also open to the public. The whole process takes about two hours, so pack a snack.
WHEN ARE SALES CUT-OFF? Sales cut-off times vary by state - from one hour before the draw to two hours before the draw. These may change from time to time. Of course, a particular retailer may also have shorter store hours. For specific state lottery information, you can click on the state lottery web site through this map: http://www.powerball/powerball/pb_map.asp
CAN INDIVIDUALS IN A GROUP CHOOSE CASH AND ANNUITY? CAN INDIVIDUALS IN A GROUP DIVIDE THEIR SHARE UNEQUALLY? An individual lottery may have rules about how they will pay a winner (how many checks; how many winners to process, etc.) but we can handle any request to divide the prize payments. We can divide the prize however the individuals in a group wish, including requests for cash or annuity. But again, an individual lottery's rules will apply and most lotteries have not had to consider this question.
CAN I REMAIN ANONYMOUS WHEN I HIT THE JACKPOT? All but three states (DE, KS, ND) have laws that require the lottery to release the name and city of residence to anyone who asks. One state (SC) will keep your name secret if you request it, but if someone files a Freedom of Information Act request, you may have to file a plea with the judge to deny it. Another state (OK) now has a law that allows you to claim in a trust and to keep your name from the press (though the lottery will run checks on you). Photos and press conferences are up to you for most, but not all states. Check with your state lottery to see if photos or more are required. Most of the time, it is advisable to get it over with the press so that you don't have one or more reporters following you around to get that "exclusive" interview. A few more lotteries may work with you on setting up a trust or other partnership. You or your representative should contact the lottery for the details after you win.
WHAT HAPPENS TO UNCLAIMED PRIZES? Except for the jackpot (and the BONUS prize whenever it is in effect), all unclaimed prizes are kept by the lottery jurisdiction that has the winner. About half of the lotteries are required to put the money back into a game. The other half is required by law to turn the money over to the state's general fund. The jackpot money and BONUS prize pool are treated differently. If these two prize pools are unclaimed, The money must be returned back to all lotteries, in proportion to their sales for the draw run. The lotteries then distribute the money as they are required by law - back into other lottery games or back to the state's general fund.
WHAT HAPPENS IF AN ANNUITY PRIZE WINNER DIES?
First there will be a funeral. Then the estate will handle the lottery prize. A lottery annuity prize is just like any other asset. You can pass any remaining annuity payments on to your heirs or to anyone else. The Powerball game will even cash out an annuity prize for an estate. This may make it easier for the estate to distribute the prize. It also may be necessary to cash out the annuity to pay Federal estate taxes. We will sell some or all of the securities at competitive bid or will even just transfer the securities to the estate. We do not charge a fee of any kind. I think that this misunderstanding may come from the response that the prize "goes to the Estate" and some people hear "goes to the State."
HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GET MY MONEY?
It takes two weeks to collect the cash from the stores around the nation. If you go to the lottery to claim your prize after that two weeks, then you can generally have the jackpot money (all cash or the first of the annual payments) hit your bank account the next day - maybe the following day if you come to the lottery office very late in the day. That said, you will have no trouble getting a little credit if you wish to buy something big before the two weeks time. Just mention my name - and that you are the Powerball winner. I NEED TO CHANGE MY ADDRESS OR UNSUBSCRIBE. Go to this link http://www.powerball.com/players/pb_club.asp You can add yourself to our email service; delete yourself or just change your address by doing both.
I GOT AN EMAIL SAYING THAT I WON THE LOTTERY; IS IT LEGITIMATE? NO. It is a common scam. We get over 100 emails each week asking this question. We get over 100 telephone calls each week asking this question. We even get emails sent here telling us that we've won the Powerball. You never have to send money to collect a legitimate lottery prize. You should never reply to these emails. You should never send money to these people. You should never give your bank account number or your mother's maiden name to anyone. You should never run with scissors. You may even be sent a check to cover the costs and then be asked to wire back some money. But the check will bounce (sometimes not for months and then you are charged with writing bad checks). It is best not to respond or you can be put on a list to receive other scams. Progress is being made in catching these crooks (on May 23, 2006, the U.S. Justice Department announced 565 arrests in lottery and sweepstakes scams; on August 5, 2006 a scam ring leader was arrested in Nigeria), but there are many crooks still out there.
Go to this link to see some common lottery scams - your exact sample may not be there, but it is still a scam; the scammers keep changing things a bit: If you still want to respond to these emails, consider these headlines:
Woman duped in alleged scam, Bismarck Tribune, Nov 27, 2006 - An elderly Bismarck woman reportedly has been fleeced of more than $100,000 in an apparent lottery scam.
For a list of common Internet scams, try clicking here: http://www.powerball.com/Common-Scams.asp
You can also file a complaint with the U.S. government at: http://www.ic3.gov/
A common complaint is that our odds are wrong. Sure, the odds of matching 1 red ball out of 39 are 1 in 39, but we are not giving those odds. We give the odds for winning a prize for matching one red ball ALONE. If you match the red ball and one or more white balls, you win some other prize, but not this prize. The odds of matching one red ball ALONE are less than 1 in 39 because there is some risk that you will also match one or more white ball numbers.
HOW COME THE ONLY JACKPOT WINNERS ARE FROM THE [EAST - WEST - NORTH - SOUTH - CITIES - RURAL AREAS]? HOW COME ONLY [WHITE, BLACK, TALL, SKINNY, YOUNG, OLD] PEOPLE WIN? Powerball is a random game that knows nothing about who buys a ticket or where the ticket was purchased. There really is no white/black/old/young/rich/poor, etc.] button on the machine. If one draws a box around some group of players (eg., state border, hair color, shoe size), then that group of players will win in proportion to their play. If the defined group buys 10% of the tickets, then they will win 10% of the prizes - on average and over a reasonable period of time. The Law of Large numbers explains how random expectations become truer as the number of occurrences increases. So, if players in a particular group buy 8.6754% of the tickets, then we will find, if the number of occurrences (prizes awarded) are large enough, that those players win 8.6754% of the prizes. This is definitely true for the low-tier prizes where there are large numbers of winners. With 12 to 15 jackpot winners in a year, we would expect that these percentages can get out of sync with sales from time to time, but as the number of jackpot winners continues to increase, we will find that the percentage numbers move closer and closer to being the same number. Try this experiment. Flip a coin four times. You might get 75% heads - or even 100%. But then flip it 1,000 times (no cheating). You will come much closer to the statistical expectation of 50% heads. It really does NOT make any difference where you buy your ticket.
WHICH HAS THE BETTER CHANCE OF WINNING: COMPUTER PICKS OR PLAYER PICKS? About 70% to 80% of purchases are computer picks. About 70% to80% of winners are computer picks. Perhaps just one of those weird coincidences?
WHY HAS THE CASH JACKPOT GONE DOWN? Actually, it is the annuity jackpot that has gone UP. Most people assume that we start with the annuity, but we really start with the cash jackpot. In the Powerball game, thirty cents of every dollar sold goes into the cash jackpot pool. The difference between the cash jackpot and the annuity jackpot depends on how much we can make in interest earnings. The more interest that we can make, the higher the annuity jackpot - and the lower the cash percentage. In times of high interest rates, the annuity prize will go UP and the difference between the two jackpot amounts will increase. It is not that we have reduced the cash; but only that we have been able to increase the annuity prize. All of the cash jackpot and the interest earned is paid to the winner for the annuity. Rising interest rates increase the annuity jackpot (reduces the cash percentage), but a change in the payment method of the Powerball annuity prize is the big reason for the increased interest earnings to build the annuity prize. The annuity is now paid out as a graduated annuity. Each payment is 4% higher than the previous year's payment to help keep up with inflation. The annuity prize used to be paid out in equal payments. Persons who elect to take the annuity prize do so because they don’t want to worry about investing the money. They want to maintain their lifestyle for the term of the annuity. In fact, our past practice of equal installments did not really meet the needs of these winners. Going from an income of say, $50,000 a year to say, $1 million per year, sounds great (and I hear that it is), but ten years later, the winner’s income is still $1 million a year and the price of luxury cars and yachts has gone up. In twenty years, the fact that the winner is living on a “fixed income” really starts to sink in. If you took the same cash jackpot amount to a professional financial advisor, they would certainly recommend investing in a graduated annuity so that your “real” income would stay at the same level every year. The Powerball annuity jackpot now does that.
IS THE CASH AMOUNT THE JACKPOT AMOUNT AFTER TAXES? No. When we advertise a prize of $100 million paid over 29 years (30 payments), we actually have less than $50 million in cash. When someone wins the jackpot and wants cash, we give them all of the cash in the jackpot prize pool. If the winner wants the annuity, we invest the $50 million in cash to fund the annuity payments. The winner gets the cash plus the interest earned. When you see an estimated jackpot annuity prize, we are estimating both sales and what the market's prices on certain securities will be. The annuity jackpot amount and the cash jackpot amount that we announce are always estimates until sales are final and, for the annuity jackpot, until we take bids on the purchase of securities. Federal and State Income tax apply to whatever income you actually receive in a given tax year, whether it is wages or lottery prizes. If you take the cash amount (say $50 million), then you pay income tax on $50 million). If you take the annuity (say $100 million), then you pay income tax on the money you actually receive each year. Just like your wages, a withholding amount is required to be taken out immediately. The lottery will send you a W2-G form and you figure your actual tax at tax time.
CASH VS. ANNUITY - MY FINANCIAL EXPERT SAYS HE CAN EARN MORE THAN THE ANNUITY WITH THIS CASH. Maybe. We have seen that even financial experts forget about taxes. From the example above, if the winner takes the cash, then the winner will have to pay state and federal taxes on the cash amount. The amount of income tax will vary, but it will likely be somewhere close to half the cash amount. With $50 million as a cash prize, a cash winner will have less than $30 million to invest. We don’t pay any income tax and so start out by investing the whole $50 million. You should note that current tax rates are pretty low right now and may go higher in the future. Federal rates for 2006 are at 35% (and Powerball winners end up in that maximum tax bracket). Sometimes financial experts also do not understand how the annuity prize is paid out. We do not hold the prize for 29 years and then pay it all out. The Powerball annuity prize is an annuity stream. The winner gets the first payment immediately and then an annual payment for the next 29 years. And this is guaranteed. It is possible to beat this income stream, but not without risk. Deciding how to take the prize can be a complicated decision, but it is an important one that deserves your attention. You have 60 days, after you claim your ticket, to make the decision. Get lots of advice and ask these kinds of questions.
I HAVE A GAME IDEA; YOU SHOULD GIVE 200 PEOPLE $1 MILLION EACH. We do get mail from persons offering ideas that promise to double or triple our sales in the game. We also get a lot of mail that starts - "Everyone I talk to agrees that Powerball should pay more and smaller prizes, who needs $XXX million!!!" These writers usually get extremely angry when we try to explain why their idea won't work - so we prefer to use this standard response. Please accept this response with our apologies for not recognizing how very right you are:
(1) If you are sending in a game idea with no demand for payment: Thank you for your idea and comments, we will certainly pass it on to the design team; will run it by our very expensive patent law firm for a review of other possible patent infringement ideas (so we don't get sued); and then will develop and run qualitative and quantitative research to test the concept with a mix of players.
YOUR QUESTION NOT HERE? If your question is a bit more unusual (oh, let's say, "more imaginative"), it may be answered at Real-Letters.
AND FINALLY . . . The state lotteries have professional staffs who respond to questions. They know the state lottery operation the best and if they do not know the details of how a multi-state game works, they can get the answer from us and they will write back with a very nice response. If you like to be rude and yell at people who won't be rude back, then the state lottery is where you should write--they are professionals. We have a very small staff here with no one who has the job of responding to letters. Here, your letter will likely be answered by the top guy, who works 24/7. He will give you a complete and straight answer but he can sometimes come off as a little abrupt in email, especially when he has too little time to spend on each letter. He also thinks that he is a comedian. We apologize in advance for him. Here are some comments from actual letter writers to his responses.
If your question is not answered here, you can send your question to Letters@MUSL.com | |||
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