LITTLE ROCK — Wednesday’s Powerball drawing will be the first since the game revamped its rules, including doubling the ticket price.
Previously $1, a Powerball ticket is now $2. Arkansas lottery and Powerball officials say prizes are also going up, as are the odds of winning.
The starting jackpot, or the amount the jackpot reverts to after each win, is now $40 million instead of $20 million.
The prize for matching the numbers on all five white balls but not the red ball is now $1 million instead of $200,000. Prizes for matching fewer than five white balls have also increased.
Players still have the same number of white balls to choose from, but the number of red balls to choose from is now 35 instead of 39, increasing the odds of a jackpot from 1 in 192 million to 1 in 175 million.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The Power Play option still costs an extra $1, but it no longer multiplies the prize between two and five times. Instead, it doubles a $7, $100 or $1 million prize, triples a $4 prize and quadruples a $10,000 prize.
Lottery officials said players who want to keep playing a $1 large-jackpot draw game can continue playing Mega Millions, which has not changed.
Lottery officials say the changes are expected to boost interest in Powerball and distinguish it from Mega Millions. Before this week the two multi-state games were virtually identical.