Honestly, most of us have been there. You're standing at a bodega counter in Queens or a gas station in Albany, squinting at a tiny screen or a crumpled slip of paper, trying to figure out if your life just changed forever. But checking new york state lottery winnings and results is surprisingly easy to mess up. Between the midday draws, evening draws, and those weird "bonus" balls that don't always mean what you think they do, it’s a lot.
People lose out on money every year because they simply don't understand how the prize tiers work or they let a ticket expire in a sun-bleached glovebox. If you’ve got a stack of tickets on your nightstand, let’s get into what’s actually happening with the NY Lottery right now.
The Big Ones: Powerball and Mega Millions
The "big two" are what drive most of the traffic to the lottery’s website. As of mid-January 2026, the jackpots are starting to look pretty juicy again. We just saw a Mega Millions draw on Tuesday, January 13, where the numbers were 16, 40, 56, 64, 66 and a Mega Ball of 4. Nobody hit the big one there, so that jackpot is rolling over to an estimated $230 million for the Friday night draw.
Powerball is in a similar boat. The Wednesday, January 14 drawing turned up 06, 24, 39, 43, 51 and a Powerball of 2. The Power Play was 2X. Since no one matched all six, we're looking at about $179 million for Saturday.
It’s easy to get tunnel vision on the hundreds of millions. But check your numbers for the smaller prizes. Even matching just the Powerball or the Mega Ball gets you a few bucks back—basically a "free" ticket for next time. If you hit four numbers plus the special ball, you’re looking at $50,000 or $10,000 depending on the game. That’s a new car, or at least a very nice vacation, and people forget to claim these "smaller" wins all the time.
Local New York Favorites: Take 5 and Win 4
If you're a daily player, you probably care more about the local New York games. These draw twice a day—Midday and Evening.
Recent Take 5 Results
Take 5 is arguably the best game for actually winning something. The odds of hitting the top prize are 1 in 575,757. Compare that to the 1 in 292 million for Powerball.
✨ Don't miss: Williams Sonoma Deer Park IL: What Most People Get Wrong About This Kitchen Icon
- January 14 Evening: 02, 11, 14, 22, 26
- January 14 Midday: 05, 07, 11, 19, 37
- January 11 Evening: 10, 12, 21, 36, 38
Just in the last few weeks, top-prize tickets have been sold all over the place: Corona, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Riverhead. If you bought a ticket at a shop in those areas, check your pockets.
Win 4 and Numbers
These are the staples of the NY gaming scene.
- Win 4 (Jan 14): Midday was 1-1-7-2 and Evening was 8-3-4-0.
- Numbers (Jan 14): Midday was 0-0-9 and Evening was 0-1-8.
The Scratch-Off Strategy: What’s Still Out There?
People buy scratch-offs based on the color of the ticket or a "lucky" name. That’s fine for fun, but if you want to be smart about new york state lottery winnings and results, you need to look at the "Top Prizes Remaining" list.
The New York Lottery is actually very transparent about this. They list every game and exactly how many jackpots are still floating around in rolls of tickets at your local corner store.
For example, the new "2026" game (Game #1678) just launched. It’s a $5 ticket with a $500,000 top prize. As of this week, 2 of those $500,000 prizes are still out there. On the flip side, some older games like "More Money" (Game #1668) have zero top prizes left. People are still buying those tickets, but they literally cannot win the million-dollar jackpot because it's already been claimed.
Expert Tip: Before you drop $20 or $30 on a "VIP" or "Blitz" ticket, check the NY Lottery website’s scratch-off page. If the top prizes are gone, move to a different game.
🔗 Read more: Finding the most affordable way to live when everything feels too expensive
Taxes: The "Second" Drawing
Let’s talk about the part everyone hates. You won! Awesome. But you didn't win as much as the giant check says.
New York is one of the "worst" states to win the lottery in because the tax bite is aggressive. The New York State Gaming Commission is required by law to withhold taxes on any prize over $5,000.
Here is the breakdown of what disappears before you even get the check:
- Federal Withholding: 24%
- New York State Withholding: 10.90%
- New York City Withholding: 3.876% (If you live in the five boroughs)
- Yonkers Withholding: 1.82575% (If you live in Yonkers)
So, if you live in Manhattan and win a million dollars, you’re losing nearly 40% right off the top. And remember, that 24% federal withholding is just a "down payment." Since a big win puts you in the highest tax bracket (37%), you’ll likely owe the IRS even more money come April.
Can You Stay Anonymous?
This is the million-dollar question. Literally.
As of right now, New York law generally requires the lottery to disclose the winner's name, city, and prize amount. They want the publicity to show people actually win. However, there has been a lot of movement in the State Legislature (specifically Assembly Bill A6555) to allow winners to remain anonymous for safety reasons.
💡 You might also like: Executive desk with drawers: Why your home office setup is probably failing you
For now, if you win big, you might consider forming a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or a Blind Trust. This doesn't always guarantee total anonymity—the Gaming Commission still needs to know who the actual humans behind the LLC are for tax and background check purposes—but it can provide a layer of distance between your face and the evening news.
Practical Steps If You Just Won
Don't run to the store. Seriously. Stay home.
- Sign the back immediately. A lottery ticket is a "bearer instrument." If you lose it and haven't signed it, whoever finds it can claim it.
- Take a photo of both sides. Digital proof is your backup.
- Put it in a safe place. Not your wallet. A fireproof safe or a bank safety deposit box is better.
- Shut up. Don't post it on Facebook. Don't tell your coworkers. The "lottery curse" usually starts with a cousin you haven't seen in ten years asking for a loan.
- Get a pro. If the win is over $100,000, you need a tax attorney and a financial advisor before you talk to the lottery office.
Winning is a marathon, not a sprint. You have exactly one year from the date of the drawing to claim your prize for draw games. For scratch-offs, you have one year from the officially announced end of the game. You have time to get your ducks in a row.
The New York Lottery app is actually pretty good these days for checking results. You can scan your ticket with your phone's camera, and it’ll tell you "Winner" or "Not a Winner" instantly. It’s way more reliable than trying to read the numbers yourself while you're half-asleep.
If you're holding a ticket right now, go grab your phone and use the official app to scan it. If it says you won more than $600, you’ll have to head to a customer service center or mail it in—but for anything under that, most retailers can pay you out in cash on the spot. Just make sure the machine isn't "down," which is the classic excuse when a clerk doesn't have enough cash in the drawer.
Check your "Draw Game" tickets from the last year. You'd be surprised how many $50 and $100 winners are currently sitting in junk drawers across the state. Those small wins add up, especially when they're essentially found money.
To stay on top of the latest results, make it a habit to check the official NY Lottery site every Thursday and Sunday morning after the major draws. That’s when the "payout information" usually updates, showing exactly how many New Yorkers hit each prize level. If you see a lot of winners for a specific game, it usually means the numbers were "popular" (like birthdays), which can sometimes dilute the prize pool in pari-mutuel games like Lotto.
Go check those tickets. Good luck.