US lotteries: who runs them and what they sell
There is no national lottery in the United States. There are 48 lotteries run by states, the District of Columbia and two territories, and Powerball and Mega Millions are games they agreed to run together. The rules that touch your money belong to the one that sold you the ticket.
The games are shared, the lotteries aren't
A Powerball ticket looks the same in Florida and in Oregon, and the jackpot is one pool. Almost everything else about it is local. The game is coordinated by the Multi-State Lottery Association, and its own site says each member "retains its independent statutory duties regarding ticket sales, retailer authorization, prize payments, income offsets, and other responsibilities." That's the whole structure in a sentence. The association runs the draw. Your lottery runs your ticket.
Mega Millions started with a different group of lotteries. On 31 January 2010 a cross-selling agreement between the two games took effect and 23 more state lotteries joined Mega Millions, according to the Mega Millions FAQ, which today puts the game in 45 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands, 47 jurisdictions in all. Powerball's count is one higher, because Puerto Rico sells Powerball and isn't on the Mega Millions list.
Then there are the smaller games. The association lists Lotto America, 2by2 and Millionaire for Life among its current games, and a member sells only the ones it chooses. And there are the games a lottery runs on its own. Texas, for one, has Lotto Texas, and its claim rules treat a Lotto Texas jackpot the same way as a Powerball or Mega Millions one. The odds and prize charts for a lottery's own games are on its own site.
I'd keep that picture in mind when somebody tells you "the lottery" said something. Which one?
The 48 lotteries that sell Powerball
Powerball's FAQ says the game is sold by "all 48 U.S. lotteries", with the U.S. Virgin Islands joining in 2002, Puerto Rico in 2014 and Mississippi, the most recent, in 2020. The site doesn't publish them as a directory. The names below come from its media center, which lists a contact for "each lottery that sells the Powerball game". The links are the official sites as the Multi-State Lottery Association lists them for its members, and as Mega Millions' where to play page lists them for California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia and Washington. The Double Play column is from Powerball's Double Play page, which names the 30 lotteries that offer that add-on.
Count the states and you'll find 45. Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah aren't on the list. If you live in one of them, you can still buy a ticket while you're visiting a state that sells it; the FAQ says you don't have to be a resident or a citizen, only old enough under the rules where you buy. Lists like this one go stale, so I'd check the lottery's own site before you rely on a row.
What your lottery decides
Here is the part people get wrong. Nearly every practical question about a ticket is answered by the lottery that sold it, and the answers differ.
How long you have to claim is one. Powerball says expiration dates run from 90 days to a year depending on who sold the ticket, and the jackpot claims page has Texas at 180 days and Delaware at a year. Miss it and the prize is gone; the FAQ says unclaimed money stays with the lottery, and an unclaimed jackpot goes back to all of them in proportion to their sales.
Whether you can buy online is another. Some lotteries sell over the internet, and the games' own FAQs say those sales are for people inside the lottery's borders, and often only for its residents. The buying lottery tickets online page goes through how an official online sale works and why I'd buy nowhere but the lottery's own site or a licensed retailer.
Tax is split in two. The federal rules are the same everywhere, and the lottery taxes page explains the 24 percent withholding and why it falls short on a big prize. State tax is your state's business, and sometimes the business of the state where you bought the ticket too.
Anonymity runs from never to always. Powerball's FAQ puts it plainly: "Every jurisdiction has its own law on winners remaining anonymous." The claims page has what California and Delaware say about theirs.
The money is local as well. On average, 35 percent of every $2 Powerball ticket stays where it's sold for public programs, according to the FAQ, and each legislature decides what that means. That's why a lottery's site is the place to read about where its money goes.
Before you play
None of this changes the odds, which are on the Powerball and Mega Millions pages, and none of it changes the price. What it changes is what you can do with a ticket once you hold it. I'd find my own lottery's site, from the table above or by typing it in, and read its claim rules before I needed them. If the tickets are getting harder to stop buying, the responsible gambling page has where to get help.