Just because you have a non-winning Powerball ticket doesn’t mean you still can’t come out ahead of the game.
Once you realize your Powerball ticket didn’t hit the jackpot, should you just throw it away? Should you move on with your life, hanging your head in despair because you lost on a multi-million dollar payout? No!
There are a few reasons you should hang on to those non-winning Powerball tickets, at least for a little while. First, don’t get so down in the dumps about missing out on the Powerball jackpot. You could still come out a winner, in one or more of these potential ways, using those losing Powerball tickets.
Just Because You Didn’t Win the Jackpot, Doesn’t Mean You Didn’t Win
When the Powerball jackpot swells into the tens or even hundreds of millions, people come out of the woodwork to buy tickets. You might be one of them. You head to the counter and buy a hoard of Quick Picks and head back home to wait for the drawing. And when you finally hear on the news that no one won the jackpot or someone else hit the big prize, you take your pile of Powerball tickets over to the trash can.
That would be a mistake. Here’s why.
Just because your numbers didn’t match to win the Powerball jackpot, it doesn’t mean you didn’t manage to match some combination of numbers. Powerball pays out smaller prizes, too, from four dollars to $1 million, depending on how many digits you were able to match. And missing out on $100 or even $50,000 would be a tough pill to swallow. So, before you throw out those non-winning Powerball tickets, take a closer look or run by a local retailer to verify if you have any winnings owed to you.
Some Games Have Second-Chance Drawings
Before tossing those non-winning Powerball tickets, hang on to them for an opportunity to score with a second-chance drawing. Unbeknownst to most people, losing tickets of all forms, including scratch-offs, MegaMillions, and Powerball, can sometimes be eligible for drawings of other great prizes. And those odds are generally better than the original game. So check with your state and region for upcoming second-chance drawings. Your non-winning Powerball ticket could prove to be a winner after all, even if it is just a free dinner, movie passes, or a few hundred bucks.
Using the Cost of Losing Tickets to Offset a Jackpot Win
Here’s another perk of hanging on to all those losing Powerball tickets indefinitely. Down the road, should you play and win, you can offset your winnings with the IRS by claiming the losses of past losing tickets. So, hypothetically, if you win $200,000 in Powerball but have a stack of losing Powerball tickets that cost you $10,000 over your lifetime, you can use those losses to offset your earnings and pay less. It might just be worth keeping every non-winning Powerball ticket you ever have.
Those Non-Winning Powerball Ticket Numbers Could Be Worth Playing Again
Keeping a stack of losing Powerball tickets indefinitely might make you a bit of a hoarder. But those losing numbers could be worth playing later again or at least serve as inspiration in picking numbers to play. We recently shared the story of a man who found non-winning Powerball tickets in his late father's things. It inspired him to go play, using some of his dad's favorite numbers. And it proved to be lucky since those old numbers, from losing tickets, won a whopping $1 million.
So, should you be keeping your non-winning Powerball tickets? It might not hurt to do so, at least for a little while. You never know. You could still be a winner!