Powerball multi-state lottery to raise prices, jackpots

I currently play Powerball and FL Lotto. I'm thinking if I give up FL Lotto and even if I win PB's second prize, I will be happy anyways. And my total yearly expenditure remains the same.

Oh, it's going to be $500,000,000 a MONTH now, is it?  Well, then! Count me.....OUT. $40 million or $1 billion, first you have to hold the winning ticket.

I will most likely only play 1 pick without powerplay. It would be nice to see a $500,000,000 jackpot!

$500,000,000.00 Jackpot...that would be pretty sick

$1,000,000,000.00 Jackpot...gonna have to

Good luck to the people participating in this game.

I was waiting to see the prize table and Power Play prize table before I said anything, but this is aweful.  They didn't even raise any prizes except 3 dollars to 4 dollars (that should excite nobody, since a Powerplayed Powerball ticket always won more than that) and they made the Second prize always a million, which it was with power play, which costed 2 dollars anyway.

This is, actually, overall, a worse prize table, with a higher priced ticket.  That's so ridiculous, it's ridiculous.

What I find interesting is that it was Mega Millions (with lower odds) and not Powerball that had really big Jackpots to be won in the past

This move could make local games more attractive.  There are probably plenty of players who would be happy to just spend a $1 for better odds of being a millionaire rather than $2 for worst odds of being a multi-millionaire.

You read my mind.

Five numbers with powerplay used to be 1 million now its two million! Sounds good to me!

I'm going to win this year!

I did a short analysis of pay tables for both games, the old and new, with and without powerplay.

Based on the first draw (New Jackpot), the Original returns 23.394% of money played (on average).  With PowerPlay, for 2 dollars, it returns 31.0547%.  The new tickets return 29.3944%, with Powerplay for 3 dollars returns 36.1926%.

I said it before, that it'd only be better if these return tables were significantly better.  They are slightly, but not significantly better, and with an increase in cost, they still result in a bigger Expected loss per ticket (31.0547% of 2 dollars returned vs. 29.3944% of 2 dollars)

I tried posting the excel analysis - but it becomes disorganized on the site.  The conclusion was that these new paytables return a slightly higher percent, but not at the cost you want to play at, and still have a bigger expected loss due to price increases.

Maybe someone should start a petition like the young lady did against Bank of America.  Anyone can boycott Powerball or any ripoff games.  There are no rules saying anyone has to play.  I will not be playing.

On another note I have thought of a power up option with the three and four digit numbers.  Would something like this generate any interest?  Multiplying these prizes by up to five times would be a big hit in my opinion.

Question: Does a bigger jackpot improve your chances of winning?

Answer: NO!

Those games are already rigged, and once the Jackpot is bigger your chances of winning diminish. Once this thing is over 100 millions they star rigging it . Someone will hit the Jackpot on Jan 14 which is a saturday since the new game start on the 18th. LOL lottery is so predictable.

The jackpot will increase by at least $10 million every drawing there is no grand prize winner, whereas under the current structure there is no minimum increase.

The above statement from the story is incorrect. Under the current structure, the jackpot increases a minimum $5 million per draw.

Also, under the current structure, the only way to gain a realistic payout is via group play. The new structure makes it even more difficult to gain a realistic payout as an individual player.

Good luck.