Prizes Far Below What Was Advertised For First Powerball Xs & Os Drawing

In the inaugural drawing of the new NFL-themed Powerball Xs & Os game Sunday night, there were no jackpot winners, but there were 19 second-prize winners, 810 third-prize winners, and 7,117 fourth-prize winners. And they’re all getting less money than was advertised.

Powerball issued a release Monday morning revealing that, due to some fine print and the Multi-State Lottery Association’s (MUSL) discretion to apply it, the prize amounts were adjusted downward for this drawing.

The Aug. 27 release that formally announced details of the game did indeed read, in italicized print below the prize chart, “Lower-tier prizes may become pari-mutuel in some circumstances.” And Monday morning, MUSL declared after the first drawing, “While Powerball Xs & Os offers set prize amounts for lower-tier prizes, payouts may be determined on a pari-mutuel basis under certain circumstances. For the Sept. 13 drawing, lower-tier prize payouts were determined on a pari-mutuel basis, reflecting ticket sales and the number of winners at each prize level.”

For some winners, this is no big deal. First off, the 31,423 players who connected on four of the eight NFL logos turned their $5 entries into a $7 payout, as expected. And those 7,117 who went five-for-eight will win $34 instead of $40, not a devastating drop-off.

But the 810 players who went six-for-eight and were expecting to win $500 will instead collect a mere $40. And the 19 seemingly lucky tickets that went seven-for-eight will, instead of earning the advertised $20,000, pay out only $500.

The release did not explain the decision to use the pari-mutuel approach to payouts beyond that vague statement about it “reflecting ticket sales and the number of winners at each prize level.” The implication is that the number of winners, particularly at the higher levels, were an outlier relative to expected win percentages, and paying $380,000 in second-tier prizes and $405,000 in third-tier prizes would have made the initial drawing not profitable enough for the state lotteries running it. So instead, Powerball is paying a mere $9,500 total to the first group and $32,400 total to the second group.

What were the winning teams?

The NFL team logos drawn Sunday night were those of the Chicago Bears, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers, Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

If you’re looking for a correlation between Powerball Xs & Os results and real-world NFL results, you won’t find one. Four of the teams won in Week 1, three of the teams lost, and one of the teams (Kansas City) plays Monday night.

The estimated jackpot for Sunday’s drawing was $1 million, and since nobody purchased a ticket that matched all eight teams, that will roll over for next Sunday. So perhaps the lower-tier prize winners’ shortfall this week will boost some grand-prize winner’s windfall in the near future.

It’s small consolation to those who won hundreds or thousands of dollars less than they expected, but there are additional opportunities to win for those playing Powerball Xs & Os. Customers can enter all tickets — winners or losers — at PowerballOfficial.com to earn points toward added prizes including a trip to this season’s Super Bowl.

Powerball Xs & Os tickets are available in Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.