The North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL) was established in 2006 as a relative latecomer among state lotteries, but got off to a quick start with total sales reaching the $1 billion mark within 399 days of going live. Similarly, the North Carolina Lottery sold $1 billion worth of digital instants online within months of their launch in 2016.

In almost every year since its inception in 2006, the North Carolina Lottery has broken its own record for revenue raised for education. The nearly $6 billion it has raised so far has been put towards Pre-K educational programs, local school districts and college scholarships for students in need of financial assistance.

How to Play the North Carolina Lottery Online

Players 18 and older are welcome to buy lottery tickets online and play digital instants at NCLottery.com or through the mobile apps available for iOS and Android devices. From the website or through the app, you can get started by signing up for an Online Play account.

The NC Online Lottery does not require players to be state residents to buy lottery tickets online, but they do need to be located within state lines and undergo identity verification. The ID check is free and involves verifying your name, address, and the last four digits of your Social Security Number.

The North Carolina Online Lottery will check your location using geolocation technology each time you purchase tickets to ensure you’re within state lines at the time of purchase. If you visit the website from a mobile phone, you may only purchase when connected to the internet via wi-fi connection. Alternatively, you can download the official mobile app to buy tickets when connected to your cellular data plan.

How to Buy Powerball Online in North Carolina

Players can buy Powerball tickets online in North Carolina at NCLottery.com and through the mobile app. From the main website, visit the “play now” tab and select Powerball from the list of options presented on that screen.

This will take you to your purchase screen where you can choose the number of drawings you wish to enter, the number of tickets to purchase for each drawing and to pick your numbers. The NC Lottery website also supports a quick-pick option top pick numbers at random on your behalf.

The North Carolina Online Lottery will let you enter anywhere from 1 drawing to as many as 104 straight drawings to cover an entire year’s worth of Powerball drawings. Each ticket costs $2 individually or $3 if you select the Power Play option to potentially multiply your winnings.

Players may only purchase up to 3 tickets into each drawing, which is a bit short compared to other state lotteries that will sell up to 10 tickets at a time. However, the NC Online Lottery is more flexible than other states in allowing you to enter up to 104 straight drawings all at once.

In the end, this means you can purchase a single entry for just $2 at the low end or buy 3 tickets into 104 straight drawings with the Power Play option checked for nearly $1,000. You have a lot of flexibility in how much you spend online, so be sure you only spend what you can afford to lose.

The NC Lottery website also supports group play, which allows you to buy tickets for a group. Once you have an account, you can create new groups to keep track of who all’s involved and invite your friends to create an account and join the group. Then, all group members will be notified of winning tickets. The group play option is a great idea for anyone purchasing tickets as a group to avoid disputes later.

NC Powerball Screenshots

Other NC Online Lottery Draw Games

Moving beyond Powerball, the NC Online Lottery also sells Mega Millions, Lucky For Life, Carolina Pick 3, Carolina Pick 4, and Carolina Cash 5 online. These games all cost the same online as they do when purchased in-person and prizes are the same as well.

All NC online lottery games support group play, year-long subscriptions, and support up to three tickets per drawing.

North Carolina Lottery Digital Instants

North Carolina Lottery’s digital instants are the equivalent of online scratch cards but with interactive features, progressive jackpots that can exceed $1,000,000, and instant payouts of prizes up to $100,000.

In short, if you’ve ever wished you could play North Carolina Lottery scratch-offs online, digital instants are for you. 

The steadily growing lineup spans multiple categories of play styles, including games that award prizes for:

• Matching the winning numbers or symbols
• Revealing hidden winning symbols
• Setting off cascading wins when two or more like symbols explode after landing next to each other
• Matching three or more symbols

This explainer from the lottery’s official YouTube channel provides a succinct overview of how to play scratch-offs online in North Carolina:

The lottery’s digital instant games look like slots but operate under fundamentally different principles. Most notably, online slots use random number generators to determine outcomes, but North Carolina’s digital instants do not.

Instead, the North Carolina Lottery follows traditional scratch-off conventions to determine winners. That is, the NC Online Lottery issues a fixed number of digital tickets, and a fixed number of those are winners.

Players can select “View Official Game Rules” under any game’s description on the NC Lottery app or website to see the following information:

• Game rules and winning conditions
• Descriptions of any bonus rounds/features
• How many digital tickets are available
• How many digital tickets are winners
• The odds of winning each prize
• The overall odds of winning any prize
• The game’s overall theoretical return to player (RTP) percentage

Unfortunately, the North Carolina Lottery breaks from convention by not publishing live data on how many winning tickets remain unclaimed at each prize level. That information would be ideal for finding the games that offer the most value on any given day.

Digital Instant Screenshots

North Carolina Mobile Lottery App

The official North Carolina mobile app is available for iOS and Android devices and offers online play, ticket purchases, the ability to scan tickets for winners and to submit tickets for second-chance drawings and rewards points.

Before you can use the mobile app, you will need to visit NCLottery.com from your desktop or smartphone to sign up for an account. Then, launch the mobile app and log in on the front page. Once you’re in, you’ll see a simple interface with self-explanatory navigation menus to buy tickets, scan tickets and so on.

Buying tickets through the mobile app is fairly simple with the interface making it a step-by-step process. Choose the game you want to play and follow the instructions on the screen to pick your numbers, choose a number of drawings and to confirm your purchase.

Mobile App Screenshots

NC Lottery Promotions and Bonuses

The NC Online Lottery does not offer a deposit bonus or any special rewards for signing up, but it does host frequent promotions for regular players and regular second-chance drawings. The mobile app is the best way to participate in these programs because it can be used to scan physical tickets rather than having you manually input ticket numbers to credit you with reward points for playing.

All draw games and most scratch cards can be submitted through your account online at NCLottery.com or by scanning tickets with your mobile app. Scanning tickets will give you Lucke-Rewards points, which can then be used to enter special drawings that give out cash bonuses on a regular basis.

Additionally, tickets can be entered into second-chance drawings for a chance at winning a consolation prize. Second chance drawings offer even bigger prizes than the Lucke-Rewards drawings, with top prizes often topping out at $1,000,000.

NC Lottery Payments

If you’re located in North Carolina and are at least 18 years old, you can fund your NC Online Lottery account via the following methods:

• Debit Card
• ACH Bank Transfer
• PayPal
• Venmo
• Apple Pay

If you have a friend you’d like to help, you can sign in to your NC Lottery account and use your account balance to send your friend a virtual gift voucher. Your friend will be given a unique voucher code and can redeem it online for instant credit.

Prizes under $600 are automatically credited to your online account and may be withdrawn via check in the mail. If you originally funded your account with a bank transfer, you may also have your funds sent back to your checking account via bank transfer.

If you win a prize of $600 to $99,999, the NC Lottery app and website will provide pop-up notifications informing you to start a claim online to receive your winnings. If you win $100,000 or more, the NC Lottery will contact you to start the claims process online and then provide instructions to claim your prize in-person at the NC Lottery headquarters in Raleigh.

North Carolina Online Lottery FAQ