Powerball jackpot at $400 million - Oops! $1.5 billion - $40 mil

[highland145]

Jesus god all mighty.

That's like 8 Chelsea Clinton's!!

42 cents?

 

[DrPizza]

The probability of winning on any single ticket is the same this drawing, the last drawing, all drawings.

For simplicity's sake, let's say the odds of hitting the jackpot is 1:200M (I don't know the exact probability off the top of my head). If you buy 1 ticket, you have a 1:200M chance. If you buy 2,000 completely different combinations of tickets, you now have 2000:200M, or 1:100K.

So technically, if you bought 2,000 completely different combination tickets for 1 drawing, your chances of winning the big jackpot are significantly better than if you play 1 ticket over 2,000 drawings.

Edit: Now that I think about it some more, if you add up 1/200,000,000 * 2,000 (drawings), it comes out to 1:100K as well. So my new answer is that it is the same whether you play 2,000 completely different combination tickets on 1 drawing, or play 1 ticket on 2,000 separate drawings. Both come out to 1:100K.

Ahh, but if you do 2000 drawings, there's a chance of winning the jackpot twice (or more) - if you only do one drawing with 2000 tickets, you can only win the jackpot once.

 

[Schfifty Five]

Ahh, but if you do 2000 drawings, there's a chance of winning the jackpot twice (or more) - if you only do one drawing with 2000 tickets, you can only win the jackpot once.

While true, the expected value between 2,000 tickets on 1 drawing, vs 1 ticket on 2,000 drawings is the same still. Isn't it?

 

[Schfifty Five]

Are you sure because intuitively you'd think that spread out over many drawings you are essentially trying to hit a moving target. That is to say the winning numbers change every time.

But if you play them all at one drawing, you get multiple guesses at one set of winning numbers. Assuming you are picking different number combinations for all of the tickets of course.

If you play 2,000 drawings with only 1 ticket, the probability would just be 1/200M + 1/200M + 1/200M + ... + 1/200M (2,000 times total). That equals 1/100,000 which is the same as 2,000/200M.

edit: Thinking about it more, what I wrote doesn't seem to make sense either.

Even if you played 200M drawings at 1 ticket each, that does not guarantee a win, so adding 1/200M + 1/200M... 200M times doesn't work. So yeah, maybe 2,000 tickets for 1 drawing is better probability to win than 1 ticket each over 2,000d drawings.

 

[master_shake_]

42 cents?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84CH0FMFfw4

 

[Boze]

There is a point where playing the lottery is a good "investment", but its around $800 million on a $1 drawing, which means the Powerball needs to be hit $1.6 billion before you can justify purchasing a ticket.

Any time either lottery surpasses $500 million though, I pick up a few tickets for each drawing until its won. The odds are infinitesimally small that I'll win, so its more of a "what if?" scenario for fun.

I'd love to see a $1.6 billion lottery though, that'd be some insane shit, since you could expect the cash value to be around $1 billion, meaning after taxes you'd bring home around $600 million. Which is a staggeringly enormous amount of money.

 

[JEDI]

You should buy ten tickets with all the same numbers. Four billion big ones, baby! Woot!

genius!
I nominate him for a nobel prize.

on the other hand, you're putting all your eggs into 1 basket.
if you don't hit exactly those #s, you basically just paid $20 for 1 ticket.

but it's $4B!
yeah, worth it for a shot at the 9 zeros club!

 

[Lanyap]

I've been doing the $10 scratch offs since moving to Florida a few months ago. I got up to $60 then lost it all. LOL

 

[disappoint]

genius!
I nominate him for a nobel prize.

on the other hand, you're putting all your eggs into 1 basket.
if you don't hit exactly those #s, you basically just paid $20 for 1 ticket.

but it's $4B!
yeah, worth it for a shot at the 9 zeros club!

You can't be serious. I'm sure the person you quoted wasn't. How much you want to bet the lottery will have a rule against paying out multiple jackpot amounts? If 2 people win they don't get the full jackpot each. They split it. If you "split it" with yourself you just get the jackpot amount.

They might allow you to win multiple of the 2nd, 3rd or 4th tier prizes but not the jackpot.

As they say about casinos the house always wins. If they allowed what you say they would potentially lose money. The game is rigged by them so the players will lose not the house.

 

[disappoint]

So hey I got to thinking about this again. Yeah i know devoting too much addled brain power to this scammy scam scam but still. I got to thinking the lottery here does not let you pay with a credit card.

So I got to wondering why that is. I mean it's perfectly legal tender but they don't accept it. And I thought hmmm...maybe it's because people would do a charge back when they realize they got nothing for the cash they spent. So they make you pay with cash cause it's non-refundable.

Or maybe there is another reason...So what is the reason for not accepting credit cards?

 

[twinrider1]

Two things.
Fraud protection, as you mentioned. Cash is a done deal. They don't have to track payments to particular tickets.
Also the idea of borrowing money to play lotto is makes for bad publicity. It would be strong ammo for the anti lotto side. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a bargaining chip going back to the beginnings of making lotto legal.

 

[highland145]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84CH0FMFfw4

lolol
Chelsey Grammer.

 

[Chiropteran]

TLR need to use something other then paypal for lotto group buys...maybe bitcoin?

This really is one of the perfect use-cases for bitcoin, but i'm not sure how many people would be willing to go that far for a lottery pool.

 

[JTsyo]

Why not just use Google wallet? It's rather simple to setup.

I play the lotto at work. I usually wouldn't play but I consider it insurance that everyone else doesn't leave and I have to work alone. There's about 40 people so even with the $400 million jackpot, we're looking at about $3 million a piece after all is said and done.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Why not just use Google wallet? It's rather simple to setup.

I play the lotto at work. I usually wouldn't play but I consider it insurance that everyone else doesn't leave and I have to work alone. There's about 40 people so even with the $400 million jackpot, we're looking at about $3 million a piece after all is said and done.

Yeah, that might work, if everyone sent via checking account so there are no fees.

I also don't see anything in the EULA/AUP against using it for lotto group buys either.

 

[Schfifty Five]

So hey I got to thinking about this again. Yeah i know devoting too much addled brain power to this scammy scam scam but still. I got to thinking the lottery here does not let you pay with a credit card.

So I got to wondering why that is. I mean it's perfectly legal tender but they don't accept it. And I thought hmmm...maybe it's because people would do a charge back when they realize they got nothing for the cash they spent. So they make you pay with cash cause it's non-refundable.

Or maybe there is another reason...So what is the reason for not accepting credit cards?

3% fees from the credit card.

And I wouldn't consider a credit card "perfectly legal tender"

 

[Svnla]

Latest news - the jackpot is up to $500 Million USD. HALF A BILLION US DOLLARS, folks!!!

Well, that's before taxes and if you take annuities.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Latest news - the jackpot is up to $500 Million USD. HALF A BILLION US DOLLARS, folks!!!

Well, that's before taxes and if you take annuities.

I mean, I wouldn't mind 1% of that

 

[ElFenix]

At that point, I should just open a bank account, and tell everyone routing/account # and they just deposit that way, haha. Problem is, I would think anyone could withdraw with that info as well?

the account and routing number is on every check you've ever written.


square cash maybe?

 

[ViviTheMage]

the account and routing number is on every check you've ever written.


square cash maybe?

Yeah that always seemed bad to me.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Venmo would be the easiest.

 

[jlee]

~150mil after taxes...roughly 6mil gross/yr investment income forever.

I'm not even sure I could spend that in my lifetime. That's ~$11k a day. Forever.

 

[zerocool84]

~150mil after taxes...roughly 6mil gross/yr investment income forever.

I'm not even sure I could spend that in my lifetime. That's ~$11k a day. Forever.

People easily do that. I'm sure you could, sports/rap/rock stars do that all the time.

 

[jlee]

People easily do that. I'm sure you could, sports/rap/rock stars do that all the time.

Deliberately finding ways to do it, sure...but I don't think I'd be any happier if I was spending 100+ times what I do now.

 

[master_shake_]

People easily do that. I'm sure you could, sports/rap/rock stars do that all the time.

11k a day is not how i'm going to get my garage full of ferraris, now is it!