$200 MILLION: New Powerball delivers huge lottery jackpotPrevious TopicNext Topic

Big deal. I won't get excited until I see the jackpot finally break the record and hit $400 at least. Instrad of the predictable wins right before each record is broken. I hope it gets to a billion and I win it then. No one wants to buy $3 tickets almost certain to be losers.

This is when that two dollars actually comes into play.   I was kind of shocked to see they bumped it up fifty million for the next drawing.  I suspect it will be a bigger jump if noboy hits it on Wednesday.   I assume that it will be a record if it's not hit in the next three drawings.   So much for "more winners" removing a few of the Powerballs. 

Good luck everybody, I hit two numbers but not the Powerball so that won't even get me a cup of soup.

i thought i heard it was  " more millionaires " as 2nd prize is now $1M instead of $200k, there technically can be less winners of the 5 white prizes, as less playing, but they are still correct in the statement  more millionaires. ain't marketing wonderful.

While the PowerBall organization is responsible for paying the jackpots, all other prizes are the responsibility of the individual states where they are won so it would have had to be a state by state decision.  Had any state with only one or two second place winners defaulted, it would have been an admission that they had structured the game such that the advertised prizes couldn't be paid under normal circumstances which would have probably ended the game.

You make a very valid point, RJOh.

Are you seriously suggesting that having 110 5+0 winners is "normal circumstances"? At that time the 5+0 odds were about 1 in 2.9 million, so 110 winners would only be normal if they had sold about 315 million tickets. Lotoreport.com says they sold 10.8 million tickets. That means they would have expected about 4 winners , but had more than 27 times as many as they expected. The probability of selling that many winners as a matter of chance makes the game odds of 1 in 120 million (at that time) look like a sure thing.

If any state had sold enough tickets to cover the number of 5+0 winners in that state they would obviously have to make the full payout even if other states were entitled to make a parimutuel payout. OTOH, just because some (or all) states are entitled to make a parimutuel payout doesn'tmean they're required to do so. That only leaves the question of whether some states make the full paymant or they all do. While any individual state may have the right to make th eparimutuel payout there's nothing to prevent a collective agreement to make the full payout. I don't know exactly how it's administered, but MUSL maintains a reserve for unusual circumstances.  I think the full payout came from that fund rather than the individual states. Of course the individual states would have contributed to that fund in proportion to their ticket sales.

Your internet provider must be a lot better than mine.