Powerball is a lottery game played in 45 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The jackpot starts at $40 million and keeps growing until a lucky winner hits it. The drawing is held every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday night at 7:59 p.m.

The jackpot can be won by matching all six numbers in the drawing. The ticket must be purchased at a participating lottery retailer or lottery vending machine. Tickets are $2 per play, or $3 with optional Power Play. For an additional $1, players can add the game’s Double Play feature, which increases non-jackpot prizes 2X, 3X, 4X or 5X.

In addition to the jackpot, Powerball also offers a second prize pool, which includes secondary cash prizes. The amount of money available to the second prize pool varies depending on the number of winners in each drawing and sales of secondary tickets. The second prize pool is managed by the Multi-State Lottery Association, which collects revenue from each state participating in the game and transfers it to California.

When a jackpot is won, the winning ticket must be redeemed in the jurisdiction in which it was sold. This is to protect the integrity of the game and prevent fraud. A Powerball winner can take either cash or annuity. The choice must be made within 60 days, except in Florida and Missouri; this time limit starts after the drawing.

To win the jackpot, a player must match all five white balls and the Powerball. The Powerball is numbered from 1 to 69, while the white balls are numbered from 1 to 35. The odds of winning a jackpot are a slim 1 in 292.2 million.

The odds of winning a smaller prize are better, but they are still very low. For instance, the odds of winning a second-tier prize of $150,000 are about 1 in 3.35 million. Likewise, the odds of winning a third-tier prize of $200,000 are about 1 in 8.45 million.

Despite the lower odds, Powerball is still a hugely popular game. It was the most-played game in the US in 2015, with a total of 295,257,239 tickets purchased across the country.

But it can be difficult to make the most of your lottery ticket. It can be hard to know if you’ve picked the right numbers, or if you haven’t won the jackpot. That’s why the Multi-State Lottery Association has introduced a Powerball jackpot tracker that lets you watch the drawings online in real time.

It’s also easy to see how much the jackpot is going to grow. The jackpot keeps increasing until someone hits it, and the longer it goes without a winner, the more likely it is to reach record-setting size.

The jackpot has gone without a winner for 40 drawings now, and if there isn’t one Monday night, it will become the longest streak without a winner in the game’s history. The odds of hitting the jackpot are so low, though, that even if a winner does win it, they will likely see nothing close to $1.9 billion. 파워볼사이트