What You Need to Know About Powerball in New York

Here's what you need to know about the drawing, how to play, and what happens if you win.

Where to Buy Powerball Tickets in New York.

Anyone 18 years of age and older can purchase a Powerball ticket at any authorized New York Lottery dealer in the state. These are commonly found at grocery stores and gas stations.

You can also play online with the Jackpocket App, which is free to download. You will need to set up an account and add money to it to play Powerball, as well as several other lottery games. Note there is a service fee added to lottery purchases on the Jackpocket App, making it slightly more expensive than buying them in person. However, the app is convenient as you can make quick picks, pick your own numbers, and do anything else you would want to do at an in-person lottery location all from your phone.

How much could you win?

The current Powerball jackpot is the 3rd highest ever at $1.2 Billion. If you took the lump sum, that would come out to around $550 million after taxes and fees. If you took the annual annuity payments it would be 30 payments (1 payment for 30 years) for a total of around $626 million. The yearly payment varies. That's all according to USAMega.com.

What Does it Take to Win?

To win the grand prize, all 6 numbers on your ticket (5 plus your Powerball) must be drawn. However, you can still win money if not all of your numbers are drawn.

For 5 numbers, but no Powerball number, you win $1 million.

4 numbers plus the Powerball wins you $50,000.

You can also play Power Play multipliers that can change your winnings. For more information and the full breakdown go here: Powerball.com

What are the Odds You Will Win the Grand Prize?

Not surprisingly, the odds of you winning it all are slim. For the jackpot, the odds are 1 in 292.2 million. The odds of winning any prize 1 in 24.87.

When is the Powerball Drawing?

Powerball drawings are every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday night at 11pm EST.

What Should You Do If You Win the Jackpot?

This question has many answers. What you should absolutely do is:

1. Do not tell anyone. This is for your own safety.

2. Call an attorney who has a large firm so that they are able to handle the logistics of such a big prize and are less likely to try and steal it. They can also help you with the process of keeping your winnings as private as possible.

3. Call a financial planner and accountant, again from large firms.

After that, in my opinion, these are other things to take into consideration:

1. Decide to take the lump sum or annuity payments. I recommend the annuity payments. While such a large amount of money seems limitless, there are tons of stories of people who lost all of their lotto winnings making bad investments, purchases, and/or being scammed out of it. It you take the payments, there is always another check coming. So if something bad happens one year, another check is coming next year.

2. remember: expensive things cost a lot to keep up. Mansions are nice but they cost sometimes millions of dollars a year to maintain. The same goes for things like supercars. It's not the price tag up front that's the problem. It's the other things to maintain those pricey things that get you in the end.

Good luck tonight!