Powerball is jumping the pond.
The lottery game that has made millionaires in the United States will expand this summer to include players in England, Scotland, and other parts of the United Kingdom.
An agreement was announced Tuesday between the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the lottery game, and Allwyn UK, which operates the U.K.'s National Lottery. The deal still must be approved by a U.K. gambling commission.
It will mark the first time a lottery outside the United States will contribute to the Powerball jackpot.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to make sure that we’re keeping Powerball culturally and commercially relevant,” said Matt Strawn, who heads Powerball and is chief executive of the Iowa Lottery. “And this really is the next natural progression in doing just that.”
The same jackpot amount will be available to players on both sides of the Atlantic, with U.S. payouts in dollars and those in the U.K. in pounds.
For U.S. players, nothing changes, including the $2 cost of a Powerball ticket and the long odds of winning the jackpot of 1 in 292.2 million, Strawn said. However, with U.K. players buying tickets, a larger player pool will grow jackpots more quickly.
“Players consistently tell us in survey after survey that faster growing Powerball jackpots is what they’d like to see,” Strawn added. “Not surprisingly, the higher the jackpots grow the more people play the game in a particular drawing. The more people play, the higher sales grow. The higher sales grow, the higher the jackpots get, the more people play.”
For U.K. players, Powerball will offer a chance at much larger jackpots than are currently available at lotteries in the country and Europe.
“Our ambition is to bring more games, more innovation, and more excitement to The UK National Lottery — and it doesn’t get more exciting than Powerball, with its transformative jackpots and life-changing contributions to good causes,” stated Allwyn UK Chief Executive Andria Vidler.
Although jackpots will be the same in each country, estimated jackpot amounts will differ due to currency conversion rates and the fact that the U.S. advertises prize amounts pretax, unlike in the U.K.
The collaboration is anticipated to elevate the lottery experience for both U.S. and U.K. players, enhancing their chances at life-changing jackpots.
