How to Play Powerball

Have you ever wondered what to do with $80,000,000? Having that kind of money may seem farfetched now, but not when you’re playing Powerball. Powerball is a lottery operated by several companies throughout Australia. NSW Lotteries manages the New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory operations; Tattersalls is in charge of Tasmania and Victoria; Golden Casket is responsible for Queensland; Lotterywest handles Western Australia; and Southern Australia Lotteries Commission oversees South Australia.

Here’s how you play

1. Buy a Powerball coupon or select your numbers when you buy online. Just select six “regular” numbers from 1 to 40.
2. Choose your seventh number, your Powerball.
3. The six numbers will be drawn during the week.
4. The Powerball will be drawn from a separate machine that contains another 20 balls numbered 1 to 20.
5. Play 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 game panels.
6. If you match the right combination of numbers, you win the game!

Odds of winning Powerball

The chances of winning the Powerball lottery is split into seven "divisions":

Other ways to play Powerball

You have several options to play the game:

1. Use a "quickpick" or "autopick" option (the name depends on the company handling the lottery) where the numbers are selected randomly for you.
2. You can also go for game options like “Power 45”, which gives you a chance to win any prize in all divisions. The game includes every possible Powerball, increasing your chances to win. Other variations of “Power 45” lets you choose several numbers in different number combinations. For example, the game “Power 45 System 14” covers 14 numbers in all possible five different number combinations—this is in addition to all Powerball combinations. The System 14 game variation is the equivalent of 90,090 standard panels.
3. If you want to play Powerball for several weeks, you can always buy multi-week entries, which let you play the same numbers for five or 10 weeks at a time.

Powerball tips

1. To win a division, you need to lower the odds to something more realistic. You can do this several ways:
   • Buy several tickets and choosing different combinations of numbers.
   • Get 45 tickets and choose a Powerball number for each. This can be a bit expensive, though.
2. Don’t use numbers that have been previously drawn as a winner. The chances of that exact same number winning again are very low.
3. Choosing numbers in a particular pattern or shape won’t likely work. The odds of choosing any number combination is hard enough (as you see from the odds listed above), but the possibility of a winning pattern shaped like a cross or pentagon? Even less likely.