OH Powerball Rules
You can play Powerball in Ohio in the same way as in any other state: just pick five main numbers between 1 and 69 and a Powerball between 1 and 26. There are, however, some state-specific rules that you should be aware of:
- You must be at least 18 years of age to play.
- You can enter up to 10 draws in advance.
- A state tax of four percent will be taken on any winnings above $5,000, in addition to federal taxes.
- Ticket sales are suspended at 10:00pm ET on draw days, reopening for the following draw shortly after the winning numbers have been confirmed.
You can use the ‘Play It Again’ barcode on an old ticket by taking it to a retailer. This saves you from having to fill out another play card – your wager from the old ticket will just be duplicated. See the How to Play page for more information about entering Powerball draws.
How to Claim Prizes
You can claim prizes of up to $599 by taking your ticket to any licensed lottery retailer.
For prizes of between $600 and $5,000, you must take your ticket to be validated at a retailer, where you will be given a Pay to Bearer ticket and a claim form to fill in. The retailer will then let you know where to find the nearest cashing location, which will either be a Peoples Bank or one of Ohio’s seven racinos. You must take the Pay to Bearer ticket, along with the completed claim form and a valid form of photo identification, to one of the cashing locations to be paid out. Note that some banks charge a fee for this service.
There are also a number of Super Retailer locations throughout the state where you can cash winning tickets between $600 and $5,000.
Alternatively, you can claim prizes of this value by mail but you must still obtain a Pay to Bearer receipt from a retailer. Once you have that, send it along with the winning ticket and a completed claim form to the address below. Prizes can take up to 30 days to process and the money will be issued to you via check.
The Ohio Lottery – Room 452
615 West Superior Avenue
Cleveland, OH 44113-1879
If you win more than $5,000, you will need to contact one of the regional offices below to arrange to claim your prize in person.
| Location | Address | Telephone Number: |
|---|---|---|
| Cleveland | 1100 Resource Drive Suite 5, Brooklyn Hts, Ohio 44131 | (216) 774-5671 |
| Toledo | 315 Arco Drive, Toledo, Ohio 43607 | 1-800-5899-6442 |
| Dayton | 7462 Webster Street, Dayton, Ohio 45414 | 1-800-589-6463 |
| Cincinnati | 10840 Kenwood Rd, Cincinnati, Ohio 45242 | 1-800-589-9882 |
| Columbus | 780 Morrison Road, Columbus, Ohio 43230-6642 | 1-800-589-6445 |
| Athens | 190 West Union Street, Suite 101, Athens, Ohio 45701 | 1-800-589-6466 |
| Akron | 5926 Mayfair Road, North Canton, Ohio 44720 | 1-800-589-6467 |
| Youngstown | 242 Federal Plaza West, Youngstown, Ohio 44503 | 1-800-589-6468 |
| Lorain | 300 West Erie Broadway, Lorain, Ohio 44052 | 1-800-589-6469 |
Claim Period
You have 180 days from the date of the winning draw to claim a prize. Any money left unclaimed after this period will be transferred to the lottery’s education fund.
Lost and Damaged Tickets
The Ohio Lottery states that it is not responsible for lost or stolen tickets. In the event that your ticket does go missing, contact the Ohio Lottery for advice, although please note that it is not under any obligation to pay out any prizes if a winning ticket cannot be produced.
Going Public
Ohio is one of the states that allows lottery winners to retain their anonymity, and the majority of the jackpots won in the state have been claimed by anonymous players. When claiming a large prize from the Ohio Lottery, your name, image, or likeness will not be used for commercial purposes unless you give your written consent.
Where Does the Money Go?
Revenue from the sale of lottery tickets in Ohio is used to support elementary, secondary, vocational, and special education in the state. The lottery has paid over $8 billion to support such causes over the last decade, with more than half of those proceeds coming from the sale of instant games. Powerball has generated around $400 million for education over that period.
Roughly 30 percent of the lottery’s revenue goes towards education, with a further 60 percent used to pay out prizes. The remaining 10 percent is split between operating expenses, game costs, and paying bonuses and commissions.
| Area of Spending | Percentage of Revenue |
|---|---|
| Prizes | 60% |
| Payments to Education | 30% |
| Bonuses and Commissions | 5% |
| Operating Expenses | 3% |
| Game Costs | 2% |
Ohio Powerball Winners
The early days of Powerball in the Buckeye State were exciting, as the biggest jackpot in its history was won just two months after tickets went on sale in April 2010, when a single anonymous ticket holder landed $261 million on June 2, 2010. The winning ticket was bought at the family-run Hub Carry Out & Deli in Sunbury, and the store’s owner Ralph Smith claimed that the winner was a regular patron, although he declined to comment further at the time.
The state’s second ever Powerball jackpot arrived just three weeks later, in the drawing on June 23, 2010. A group of 14 workers at a Chrysler paint shop in Detroit, Michigan, won one half of a $96 million jackpot. The winning ticket was bought from Shirley’s Carryout in Curtice, Ohio, by William Shanteau, a local resident and the only member of the group who lived in the state. The group chose the cash option of around $25 million, which gave them around $1.2 million each. It was not Shanteau’s first big win, either; he claimed a $100,000 prize around six years previously.
Since that lucky start to Powerball, two more jackpots have been claimed in Ohio. One of them arrived in July 2014, when Mary Ann Thompson matched all six numbers with a ticket bought at True North on State Street in Conneaut, and won $124.9 million. She chose the cash option and received approximately $51.9 million after taxes. The most recent jackpot was won on April 19, 2023 and it was worth $252.6 million. The grand prize was claimed by John K. Krajewski, a trustee from The Crazy Luck Trust, who went for the cash option of $134.7 million and received an estimated $96.96 million after taxes.
