The 10X Power Play Ball Vanishes Above $150 Million Jackpots
The extra $1 multiplies every prize except the jackpot. Here are the multiplier odds, why 10X disappears on big nights, and what the dollar is worth on average.
On Saturday, September 26, 2026, the Power Play drawn alongside the main numbers was 3X. Nobody saw a 10X that night, and nobody could have. That multiplier is only in play when the advertised jackpot is $150 million or less, and this run passed that line weeks ago. I ran the official prize chart through a calculator to see what the extra $1 actually buys, with and without the rare ball.
What the extra dollar multiplies
Power Play costs $1 on top of the $2 play. It multiplies every prize except the jackpot by 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X or 10X. One tier gets special treatment: matching five white balls without the red one normally pays $1 million, and with Power Play it pays $2 million no matter which multiplier comes up. The multiplier does not touch Double Play prizes either.
Here are the chances of each multiplier, as the Maryland Lottery publishes them:
| Multiplier | Approximate odds | Example: the $4 red-ball prize becomes |
|---|---|---|
| 2X | 1 in 1.75 | $8 |
| 3X | 1 in 3.23 | $12 |
| 4X | 1 in 14.0 | $16 |
| 5X | 1 in 21.0 | $20 |
| 10X | 1 in 43.0, only at $150 million or less | $40 |
Those odds fit a simple picture. Wikipedia's rules summary describes 43 possible outcomes: 24 for 2X, 13 for 3X, 3 for 4X, 2 for 5X and a single 10X. Take the 10X away and 42 remain, which is exactly where the 1 in 1.75 and 1 in 3.23 figures come from.
To make that concrete with the September 26 draw: a 3X night turned the $4 red-ball-only prize into $12, and a player who matched four white balls plus the Powerball and had added the extra dollar would have collected $150,000 instead of $50,000. I find that second line the most persuasive row on the whole chart, even if very few tickets ever get to read it.
The 10X ball keeps small-jackpot hours
The Maryland Lottery states the rule directly: once the jackpot is greater than $150 million, "the 10X multiplier will not be available unless announced otherwise." So the richest multiplier appears only on the quieter nights, when the jackpot is modest and the crowds are thinner.
There is something charming in that. The biggest small-prize boost in the game shows up for the regulars, the people who buy a ticket at $40 million jackpots without needing a headline to talk them into it.
The expected-value arithmetic
This is my own calculation, before taxes, using the official odds for the eight non-jackpot prizes. A $2 base play returns about 32 cents in expected non-jackpot prizes. That is roughly 16 cents per dollar.
The Power Play dollar does better. With the 10X out of the draw, as it is at today's $389 million estimate, it adds about 46 cents in expected value. With the 10X available, it adds about 50 cents. Most of the lift comes from the average multiplier, around 2.6X without the 10X, and a small slice comes from that guaranteed extra $1 million on a Match 5.
So my opinion is this: if you play for the fun of the $4 and $7 prizes, the Power Play dollar is the better-built dollar on the ticket. It still returns less than a dollar on average, as every lottery product is designed to. If you play only for the jackpot, it does nothing for you at all.
Fine print worth a glance
California runs its prizes differently. The official prize chart notes that California payouts are pari-mutuel, set by sales and the number of winners, so the fixed multiplier math above does not map neatly there. Check your own lottery's page before assuming a tier.
Power Play is not new, either. Wikipedia dates its debut to March 7, 2001, which means the little multiplier has been quietly doubling $4 wins for a quarter of a century. Whatever you add to your next ticket, keep it: claim windows typically run from 90 days to one year, depending on where it was sold.
Sources
Every factual claim above traces to one of these. Links open in a new tab.
