--- title: Why You Can't Buy Powerball Tickets in Some Seriously Gambling-Friendly States description: Six states--including Nevada and Mississippi, which have plenty of casinos--have no state lotteries, and therefore no Powerball sales. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Personal Finance - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2016-01-12T18:38:14.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T09:42:11.000Z' section: Personal Finance tags: - gambling - Lottery - Powerball - state lottery word_count: 455 canonical: https://money.com/states-no-powerball-lottery-sales/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![160112_EM_GamblingStates](https://img.money.com/2016/01/160112_em_gamblingstates.jpg) *Nevada has plenty of casinos and slot machines, but no state lottery.* Powerball mania has taken over the U.S., with ticket sales soaring all over the country, pushing the [jackpot higher and higher](https://money.com/powerball-jackpot-odds/) and making it more [mathematically advantageous](https://money.com/powerball-math-odds-advantage/) to take the normally inadvisable step of spending $2 on a ticket. Powerball tickets aren't for sale in every state, however. Specifically, six states—Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, and Utah—don't have state lotteries, and therefore don't sell tickets for Powerball or any other multi-state lottery games. As a result, residents of these states who want a chance at winning the [record-high jackpot](https://time.com/4177143/powerball-jackpot-increase-billion/) have been crossing the border (when possible) to scoop up Powerball tickets. Alabamians have been [streaming into Florida](https://www.winknews.com/2016/01/07/alabamians-cross-border-into-florida-join-powerball-craze/) for this purpose, for example, and folks in Utah have been [crossing into Idaho](http://www.good4utah.com/news/local-news/utahns-wonder-why-utah-has-no-lottery) and other surrounding states on Powerball runs, bringing brisk business to convenience stores and gas stations near the border. (Alas, it's a bit more complicated for people in Hawaii and Alaska to get Powerball tickets.) **Read Next: [Why the Powerball Jackpot Has Soared So High So Quickly](https://money.com/powerball-jackpot-odds/)** Why do some states refuse to sell Powerball tickets, or have state lotteries at all? The reasons vary. A [BBC story](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31393739) published during an earlier giant Powerball jackpot frenzy in 2015 noted that Hawaii has long feared that gambling would damage the tourism industry, while Alaska is awash in so much oil money it doesn't need gambling revenues. Alabama and Utah, on the other hand, seem to be opposed to gambling of (almost) any kind due to the strong-held religious convictions of locals. And then there are Mississippi and Nevada. Clearly, neither state has a problem with gambling; they openly and famously embrace the industry, with casinos aplenty. So why don't they also have state lotteries and Powerball? **Read Next: [The One Time It’s Mathematically Advantageous to Play Powerball](https://money.com/powerball-math-odds-advantage/)** Well, it seems like they don't have state lotteries directly because casinos and private gambling operations are so huge locally. "\[Casinos\] say the more money people are spending on lotteries, the less they have to spend in casinos," the [Las Vegas *Review-Journal*](http://www.reviewjournal.com/trending/silver-state/knowing-vegas-why-doesn-t-nevada-have-state-lottery) summed up. "The casinos’ position on a state lottery has been so unwavering that it’s entirely unsurprising when a lottery proposal is rejected by the state legislature." The casinos aren't the only ones benefiting from the absence of a state lottery. Convenience stores and gas stations located just beyond Nevada, Mississippi, Utah, and Alabama state borders are pretty happy about the states' anti-lottery stances as well. For instance, the (Mississippi) [*Clarion-Ledger*](http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2016/01/06/mississippians-try-500-million-powerball/78366700/) recently highlighted how a Chevron station in Delta, La.,—population of 275, just over the Mississippi border—has had to hire extra security and string up yellow tape to create customer queues to cope with the crowds seeking Powerball tickets. Mississippi's loss is this Chevron station's gain. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/states-no-powerball-lottery-sales/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Personal Finance", "item": "https://money.com/personal-finance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Making Money", "item": "https://money.com/making-money/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Why You Can't Buy Powerball Tickets in Some Seriously Gambling-Friendly States" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/states-no-powerball-lottery-sales/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/states-no-powerball-lottery-sales/", "name": "Why You Can't Buy Powerball Tickets in Some Seriously Gambling-Friendly States", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-01-12T18:38:14.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/states-no-powerball-lottery-sales/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/states-no-powerball-lottery-sales/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T09:42:11.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Why You Can't Buy Powerball Tickets in Some Seriously Gambling-Friendly States", "articleSection": "Personal Finance", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/01/160112_em_gamblingstates.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1400, "caption": "160112_EM_GamblingStates" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Brad Tuttle", "url": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/#author", "description": "Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals.\r\n\r\n", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/01/Brad-Tuttle.png?w=226&h=247&crop=1", "alumniOf": "Columbia University School of Journalism, MS", "sameAs": [ "https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle", "https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-01-12T18:38:14.000Z", "description": "Six states--including Nevada and Mississippi, which have plenty of casinos--have no state lotteries, and therefore no Powerball sales.", "abstract": "Six states--including Nevada and Mississippi, which have plenty of casinos--have no state lotteries, and therefore no Powerball sales.", "@id": "https://money.com/states-no-powerball-lottery-sales/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-04-16T09:42:11.000Z", "wordCount": 455, "keywords": [ "gambling", "Lottery", "Powerball", "state lottery" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Personal finance", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_finance" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Income", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income" ] } ] } ] } ```