A change in the Powerball game bringing a chance at winning millions to Mondays begins with a first Monday night drawing offering a jackpot of $293 million.
Beginning this week, the national game adds a third weekly drawing. The Monday night drawing will join the current schedule of Wednesday and Saturday night drawings.
Powerball tickets remain at $2 and the odds of winning any of the nine prizes in each drawing stays the same.
“We would love to see someone from North Carolina win the first Monday night jackpot,” said Mark Michalko, executive director of the N.C. Education Lottery. “The chance to win millions on a Monday night just made Mondays a lot more exciting.”
If someone in North Carolina wins Monday’s jackpot, they have the choice of taking their prize as a $293 million annuity or a lump sum of $214.2 million.
The game change is expected to result in larger, faster-growing jackpots. Powerball jackpots start at $20 million and increase each drawing until they are won.
Five North Carolina players have won jackpots so far. Thousands of North Carolinians win prizes in each drawing. In Saturday’s drawing, 26,878 Powerball players won prizes, ranging from $4 to $50,000 The most recent big win occurred in July when a Brunswick County longshore man won a $2 million prize.
All 48 U.S. lotteries involved in the Powerball game will sell tickets for the Monday drawings Just like Wednesday and Saturday, the Monday night drawings will be held at 10:59 p.m.
Some other highlights of the Powerball game include:
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- Every $2 ticket sold raises about 76 cents for education in North Carolina.
- The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292 million.
- A $344.6 million
jackpot won by a Cumberland County man in June 2019 holds record for the largest lottery prize won so far in North Carolina.
- A $1.58 billion jackpot in January 2016 holds the record as the largest jackpot in U.S. history.