Something pretty unusual has happened twice now in Powerball in just the past two weeks. Did you catch it?
Last night’s $80 million jackpot was won with a ticket in New York, but that’s not what I’m talking about. The unusual thing has to do with the Power Play feature in the game.
The 10X was selected as the Power Play multiplier in last night’s drawing and in the drawing a week earlier, on Aug. 28.
Overall, the 10X has been selected as the Power Play number just four times: once in 2017, once in 2018, and now twice so far in 2019.
When you add the Power Play option to your Powerball ticket, it will multiply any prize you win (except the Match 5 prize and the jackpot) by the number selected as the Power Play multiplier in that night’s drawing. A Powerball ticket costs $2 per play, and you can add the Power Play option for an extra $1 per play.
When the Powerball drawing occurs, the first five numbers and the Powerball are selected by the iconic ball-drawing equipment we’ve all seen through the years, and there is a separate drawing to determine the Power Play number.
In last night’s drawing, the Power Play number was 10, so the lucky folks who added the Power Play option to their tickets won 10 times the regular amount of their prize!
Here in Iowa, a total of 1,612 plays won prizes last night that were multiplied by 10X. The biggest of them was at the Match 4 level, meaning that the ticket involved matched four of the first five numbers and missed the Powerball. That ticket initially won a $100 prize, but with the Power Play option added, it won $1,000!
It’s relatively unusual for 10X to be selected as the Power Play multiplier because it’s not always available. When the jackpot for the next Powerball drawing is an estimated $150 million or less, a 10X is added to the pool of numbers that can be selected as the Power Play. When the jackpot in the game is more than $150 million, the 10X feature isn’t available, so the multipliers in the pool are 2X-5X.
With the 10X included, there are 43 numbers in the Power Play pool. Of those numbers, 24 are 2s, 13 are 3s, three are 4s, two are 5s, and one is a 10. Here’s what that looks like in table form:
43 Numbers In Power Play Pool
2X = 24
3X = 13
4X = 3
5X = 2
10X = 1
(When the 10X isn’t included, there are 42 numbers in the Power Play pool, and the breakdown of the rest remains the same.)
So, does it stand to reason that the Power Play number will be 2 more often? Yes. But the other multipliers also have a shot. And sometimes the 10X will come up!
I always wondered why 2 came up 99% of the time. That why I don’t play power play, since you raise the cost of the ticket to $2.
Posted by: Roy Alexander | September 06, 2019 at 05:20 AM