A third weekly drawing will be added to Powerball later this month, with a Monday evening draw added to existing draws on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.
Double Play, an add-on feature that will give players a second crack at winning with the same numbers for an additional $1, will also be added in 13 jurisdictions—including Pennsylvania—beginning the night of Monday, Aug. 23, the multi-state lottery said.
The Double Play drawing will be held on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday evenings immediately after the Powerball drawing. A top cash prize of $10 million will be available for those who select the Double Play option, according to the non-profit Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), which runs Powerball.
The Double Play draw will not be televised. Instead it will be live streamed on Powerball.com and will be available to watch on the Pennsylvania Lottery’s website. Participating television stations will air the Monday Powerball drawings live at 10:59 pm ET, the same time as the Wednesday and Saturday evening drawings.
Players that purchase the Double Play option will be eligible to win prizes in both Powerball drawings.
May Scheve Reardon, Powerball Product Group Chair, said lottery players “have let us know they want to play for bigger jackpots and cash prizes, and we want Powerball to deliver on their expectations.”
Pennsylvania Lottery Executive Director Drew Svitko concurred. “This change will help us give our players exactly what they’ve told us they want—larger, faster-growing jackpots. We’re also reminding our players that every ticket sold helps us generate money for the senior programs that older Pennsylvanians rely upon each and every day. By continuously innovating to meet our players’ needs, we can keep lottery funds flowing to Pennsylvania seniors to help pay for services like prescription assistance, transportation and rent and property tax rebates.”
In neighboring New Jersey—which has a state lottery but only allows New Jersey residents to buy tickets online, and only when they are physically located within the state—officials are excited about expanded Powerball and the Double Play option, too.
“Players know that what makes Powerball exciting is the chance of winning a life-changing grand prize,” New Jersey Lottery Executive Director James Carey told PA Gaming Review. “By moving from two to three nights a week, the game will deliver bigger, faster-growing jackpots to our players. The extra drawing will also increase the number of cash prizes and jackpots won annually.”
Double Play will initially be available in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Washington—as well as Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Double Play may be added to additional jurisdictions in the future, the MUSL said. Currently, people can purchase Powerball tickets in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The number of available advance draws have been decreasing by one after each drawing since May 26. Advance draws will continue to decrease until the Aug. 23 drawing, after which the number of advance draws available will change from 26 to 20.
The MUSL said its Powerball Product Group anticipates that adding a Monday drawing for Powerball will result in larger, faster-growing jackpots, as well as an increase in the number of cash prizes and jackpots awarded on an annual basis. The non-profit added that the third drawing will not change the odds of winning a Powerball game, nor will it affect cash prizes offered in the original draws.
The Pennsylvania Lottery announced this week that the lottery generated a record profit of more than $1.3 billion during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, which ended on June 30. It was the tenth consecutive year that the lottery generated more than $1 billion in revenue, all of which goes to help seniors in the state.
