Oregon Powerball Rules

Powerball’s core game rules don’t change between states, so to enter from Oregon just choose five numbers between 1 and 69 plus one Powerball between 1 and 26. There are, however, some state-specific conditions to be aware of:

• Tickets can be purchased up to 7:00pm PT (10:00pm ET) on the night of each draw, with sales resuming for the following draw at 8:15pm.
• You must be at least 18 years of age to play Powerball in Oregon.
• You can enter up to 20 consecutive drawings on your game slip.
• A state tax of 8 percent is withheld on any prizes of $1,500 or more. Federal tax is only withheld on prizes over $5,000.

See the How to Play page for more information about entering Powerball draws.

You can claim prizes of up to $600 at any licensed lottery retailer in Oregon, at the payment center in Wilsonville, or at the lottery’s main headquarters in Salem. Prizes of more than $600 and up to $50,000 can be claimed from the Wilsonville or Salem locations, while any amounts greater than this must be claimed from the lottery’s Salem

Office Address Telephone Number Hours Wilsonville 9760 SW Wilsonville Road, Suite #130, Wilsonville, OR 97070 – Monday to Friday 8:30am-4:30pm PT Salem 500 Airport Road SE, Salem OR 97309 503-540-1000 Monday to Friday 8:00am-5:30pm PT

Alternatively, you can claim prizes of any value by mail. Sign and fill in the information on the back of the ticket and mail it to:

Oregon Lottery, PO Box 14515, Salem, OR 97309

You will need to complete a claim form for any prizes of more than $600 and send it along with your winning ticket. Do not mail winning tickets to the Wilsonville payment center as prizes cannot be processed at that location so may delay payment.

If you win the Powerball jackpot, you will have the opportunity to decide whether you want to receive the money as a one-time cash lump sum or as an annuity paid out over 29 years. You must make this choice when claiming your prize and not when buying your lottery ticket.

In Oregon, you have one year from the date the ticket was issued to claim any prizes. Any money left unclaimed after this period will be transferred to the lottery’s Economic Development Fund.

Lottery tickets are bearer instruments – meaning that whoever holds one can claim a prize with it – so if you lose a winning ticket you will be unable to claim a prize. It is always advisable to sign the back of your tickets, so if you do lose it or it is stolen, you may be able to prove that you are the rightful owner.

If your lottery ticket is lost, stolen, or damaged by a retailer while it is being validated, you may still be able to claim your prize. You should obtain and complete a claim form and ‘claim affidavit’ from the retailer and send these documents, along with any other evidence of the attempted ticket validation, to:

Lottery Player Services Office, Oregon Lottery, 500 Airport Road SE, Salem, Oregon

The lottery’s security team will then investigate the matter and if satisfied that the winning ticket and claim are valid, will authorize the prize payment.

If you win the Powerball jackpot in Oregon, your name, the amount you won, where you bought your ticket, and the date of the winning draw are all public record, so can be disclosed. Any further information about you, such as your home address or telephone number, will be kept confidential.

The Oregon Constitution states that any proceeds from the lottery – after prizes and other expenses have been paid – must be used to benefit economic development and public education, or to restore public spaces such as parks, beaches, and wildlife habitats.

At least 84 percent of the lottery’s revenues must be used to pay out prizes and fund the public services specified above. A maximum of 16 percent of revenue can be used to cover administrative costs. Finally, some proceeds may be transferred to a contingency reserve that the Oregon Lottery uses to fund investment and to ensure prizes can always be paid out. The reserve is capped at $100 million, so the amount transferred will vary.

The table below shows how revenues from lottery ticket sales in Oregon are split:

Area of Spending Percentage of Revenue Prizes 92.50% Funded Programs 4.20% Retailers (Commissions) 2.90% Operating Expenses 1.30%

Oregon’s biggest Powerball jackpot came all the way back in October 2005, when two couples in the same family shared a prize of $340 million between them. Frances and Bob Chaney, and their daughter and son-in-law, Carolyn and Steve West, pooled their money to buy $40 worth of Powerball tickets for the draw on October 19, 2005, despite some skepticism from certain members of the group. “I told my wife we never win at that,” Steve West said, but Carolyn put up their share of the money despite his reservations, and it paid off.

On finding out that one of their tickets won the jackpot, Francis Cheney ran to wake her husband to tell him, and they soon passed the good news on to the Wests. “First I checked the Powerball and saw that it was 29 and thought, ‘well good, at least we got $5,’ and then I was checking the others, and could not believe we had all five,” Francis said.

The winning ticket was bought from Ray’s Food Place in Jacksonville, and the family took the cash lump sum payout of $164 million before taxes. It was the second-biggest lottery jackpot to be seen in the U.S. at the time.