Powerball Odds Table, Prize by Prize
The official odds for every Powerball prize, and the arithmetic behind them.
How the game works
You pick 5 white balls from 1 to 69 and 1 red Powerball from 1 to 26. A play costs $2. There are nine ways to win, from matching just the Powerball up to the jackpot. All prizes below the jackpot are fixed cash amounts (except in California), and the optional Power Play multiplier raises them.
Odds for every prize
| Match | Prize | Official odds | Ways to match | Our calculation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 white + Powerball | Grand Prize | 1 in 292,201,338 | C(5,5) × C(64,0) × 1 = 1 | 1 in 292,201,338 |
| 5 white | $1 Million | 1 in 11,688,053.52 | C(5,5) × C(64,0) × 25 = 25 | 1 in 11,688,053.52 |
| 4 white + Powerball | $50,000 | 1 in 913,129.18 | C(5,4) × C(64,1) × 1 = 320 | 1 in 913,129.18 |
| 4 white | $100 | 1 in 36,525.17 | C(5,4) × C(64,1) × 25 = 8,000 | 1 in 36,525.17 |
| 3 white + Powerball | $100 | 1 in 14,494.11 | C(5,3) × C(64,2) × 1 = 20,160 | 1 in 14,494.11 |
| 3 white | $7 | 1 in 579.76 | C(5,3) × C(64,2) × 25 = 504,000 | 1 in 579.76 |
| 2 white + Powerball | $7 | 1 in 701.33 | C(5,2) × C(64,3) × 1 = 416,640 | 1 in 701.33 |
| 1 white + Powerball | $4 | 1 in 91.98 | C(5,1) × C(64,4) × 1 = 3,176,880 | 1 in 91.98 |
| Powerball | $4 | 1 in 38.32 | C(5,0) × C(64,5) × 1 = 7,624,512 | 1 in 38.32 |
Official figures from powerball.com, based on a $2 play. Powerball states the overall odds of winning a prize as 1 in 24.87. Prizes shown are the base amounts without Power Play; California pays lower tiers on a pari-mutuel basis. Odds checked against the official site on October 15, 2026. Rules and prizes can change, so check the official site before you play.
The arithmetic
There are C(69,5) ways to choose 5 white balls from 69. C(n, k) means “n choose k”: n! ÷ (k! × (n − k)!). That gives 11,238,513 combinations. Multiply by the 26 possible Powerballs and there are 292,201,338 different tickets. Exactly one of them wins the jackpot, so the jackpot odds are 1 in 292,201,338.
For the other prizes, count the tickets that match exactly that many balls. To match 4 white balls, for example, you need 4 of the 5 winning whites (C(5,4) = 5 ways) and 1 of the 64 losing whites (64 ways). That is 320 ways. With the Powerball as well, that is 320 tickets; without it, you multiply by the 25 wrong Powerballs. Divide 292,201,338 by the number of ways to get the “1 in” figure. Add up all nine tiers and the chance of winning any prize is about 1 in 24.87.
What that means for a ticket
A $2 ticket buys one of 292,201,338 combinations. Most of the prize money goes on the jackpot, which you are very unlikely to win, so on average a ticket returns much less than it costs. Lotteries put a share of sales towards prizes and keep the rest, so the expected value of a ticket is negative unless the jackpot gets extremely large, and even then taxes, the lump-sum discount and shared jackpots shrink it. Our lottery odds and expected value guide walks through the calculation.
Picking “lucky” numbers or numbers that haven’t come up recently does not change the odds: every combination is equally likely in every draw. See the gambler’s fallacy.
Sources
Reviewed by Greg Parsons, editor, against the sources above.