Not quite. For it to be 100%, every possible combination of numbers would have to be purchased by one or more players. For the drawing in question, 1,130,918 tickets won various amounts of money for matching the "mega-ball". Since there are 52 balls, a uniform distribution of mega-ball picks would mean about 58.8 million tickets were sold.
However, the odds of winning are 1 in 135 million. So, that means there was only about a 1 in 2 chance that someone would have actually won the jackpot in the last drawing.
Presuming that every set of numbers are chosen more or less randomly (without explicit measures to exhaust all the possibilities), there is always a chance that there is some set of numbers that were not chosen. As you choose more sets of numbers (randomly), the probability gets smaller, but never becomes zero unless you have an infinite number of random choices.
"Not quite. For it to be 100%, every possible combination of numbers would have to be purchased by one or more players. For the drawing in question, 1,130,918 tickets won various amounts of money for matching the "mega-ball". Since there are 52 balls, a uniform distribution of mega-ball picks would mean about 58.8 million tickets were sold."
No, you miss the point. I didn't say that every prize would be won, nor did I say the the jackpot would be won on every draw. If there is no jackpot winner, the prize rolls over to subsequent draws UNTIL there IS a winner. Thus, that money will ALWAYS be won - eventually. Thus, the 100% certainty that someone WILL win THAT jackpot. No matter how many draws it takes.
Michael