Posted on 01/13/2016 7:17:01 PM PST by Kevin in California
At the time of this writing, the Powerball jackpot is up to $1.5 billion. The cash grand prize is estimated at $930 million. In a Powerball draw, five white balls are drawn from a drum with 69 balls and one red ball is drawn from a drum with 26 balls. If you match all six numbers, you win the jackpot. If you match only some of the numbers, you win a smaller fixed prize.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
And I had a cups and balls set in the fourth grade.
No, the odds of hitting that exact combination of numbers remains the same... 1 in 292M. With more tickets sold, the odds that more than one ticket wins, and the jackpot being split between the winning tickets increases, but the odds of hitting that number remains the same for all players.
You are not playing against the other players. You are playing against the ping pong balls. ;~))
One thing is certain: If you don’t buy a ticket, you won’t even win a partial match.
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In the early days of the Texas Lotto (early 90s), one pot got up to the $70 million range. There was a story of some wealthy guy in west Texas who spent $37k buying $1 tickets. At the drawing, he won zero.
I am sure there are many similar stories. I recall a TV interview of a black woman when another pot got fairly large. She told the reporter she spent half of her paycheck on lotto tickets. I never saw a follow-up interview to know whether she won anything.
When you have a 1 in 292,000,000 chance of winning more than $900,000,000 cash for a $2, playing the lottery becomes a mathematically rational thing to do.
I have seen this a few times and nobody talks about ALL the prizes you would win. You would win all of them the maximum number of times possible. A quick look shows you would win:
1) Jackpot 1 time
2) 5 with no Powerball 25 times
3) 4 with Powerball 320 times
4) 4 with no powerball 8100+ times
5) 3 with Powerball 20800+ times
6) 3 with no powerball 504000+ times
7) 2 with powerball 416000+ times
8) 1 with powerball 3.2 million times
9) Just the powerball 7.7 million times
You don’t just win the grand prize, you would win every prize the max possible number of times.
Just saying
For sure. I guess the numbers are coming up soon. Funny thing is, I don’t watch the numbers called. I wait until tomorrow to look on the internet. Really weird I know. I get all involved in the pre but do nothing during it. Oh well.
584 million. 2 dollar tickets.
>> I will first try the wrong key. Every time <<
Whenever I find something that I’ve lost, I always find it in the last place I looked. Every time!
Schrodinger’s cat.
You don’t know if the cat is dead until you open the box.
You don’t know you’ve lost until you check.
So I thought the numbers were suppose to be drawn 10 minute ago...So where are they already!
Sounds like a good idea except....
A statistician run the numbers, there is a 25% chance of more than 4 winners when then the jackpot reaches $1 billion. After taxes, you would need a guarantee of less then 3 people winning to break even.
That’s not counting paying the army of employees to actually buy the tickets for you. I wonder how many person days it would take to buy close to 300 million tickets. You could be temporarily be one of the biggest employers in the nation.
You would be way short of winning. They sold over a billion dollars worth of tickets - at $2 per that’s over 500 million tickets. So in reality the odds are a LOT more than one in 292 million.
69C5 = 69!/(64! x 5!) = 11235813
11235813 * 26 = 292201338
That's the odds. 1 in 292201338
Always.
1 Jackpot winner in....CALIFORNIA. Still waiting on other states (maybe)
CHINO HILLS, CALIFORNIA
:) obviously not me then. Still waiting on the numbers.
Powerball01/13/201604-08-19-27-34, Powerball: 10, Power Play: 2 - See more at: http://www.superpages.com/cities/lottery/lottery-LA.html#sthash.svyC4ZDY.dpuf
Thanks.
My guess is that folks with 292 million laying around don’t play the lottery. Just a we bit out of their way.
I guess I’m still Unemployed LOL
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