Powerball at $2.00 - What jackpot level do you start playing?Previous TopicNext Topic

For me, playing PB used to be all about The Power Play.  Of course I'd have taken any JP amount, but essentially I used to play for $1,000,000.  Until today, I never bought PB without the Power Play. 

Now that winning 2nd place will get you a million bucks, I simply play without The Power Play.  So I used to spend 2 bucks per line, and now I still do.  Sure an extra million would be nice, but at 3 bucks per line I'll pass.

That's fine if you match 5+0 but at the same time matching 1+1, 2+1 , 3+0, 3+1, 4+0 and 4+1 pays the same as when you only spent a dollar.  Now everyone has to pay the extra dollar per line to help pay the million dollars prize for second place winners where before it was by choice and every prize level was multiplied.  If they don't match 5+0 or 0+1,  they get nothing for the extra dollars spent and the state gets all those extra dollars they weren't spending when they had a choice.

8 people here said they would wait till, 250 mill to buy a ticket? i want to ask  how many of that 8 have bought a tivcket already, now that its $100M?

ok of that 7 , because i ticked the 250 mill box, and i cant buy any anyhow. so i dont count, and yeah i think 100M was prob a better  choice now.

I agree, the state is the big winner for the player spending an extra dollar now.  I hadnt thought of it in those terms, but you're absolutely correct.

Another reason why I begged off the Power Play was because I run a office pool. In the past, we all agreed to buy The PP because we knew 2nd placed would jump from 200G to one million.  While we'd be grateful to have any large win, there are enough of us that we thought equally busting up 200,000 wouldnt be as nice as busting up 1,000,000.  And for an extra buck each, why not?  Sure, busting up 2,000,0000 is better still, but there's a line I didnt want to cross for a different reason. 

I could ask those guys and gals for 3 bucks, but I wont.  Some of them have a hard enough time finding 2 bucks to play.  That's another reason why we dont start playing until the JP hits 100 million.  Even then, if nobody hit's tonite, I doubt we'll play again next Wednesday.  Then again, we might, but I'll let the folks tell me what they want to do.  How I wish it was different... not because I want to play again on Wednesday if no one won, but for them.  They're all great people. Some of them work real hard for not much money.  They act like they're not broke all the time, but I know better.  I go along with their charade because I like them so much.

It may start @ 40 million but it won't go up that much for each drawing. What a Con, I dont think it will go up as much for each drawing as it did when tickets were a dollar since like myself I will only play 2 line now instead of 5 lines.

I would be really surprised if powerball went on a jackpot record run first thing out of the starting gates.  Anything can happen in the lottery because they have been only having one second place prize winners for the last two drawings so maybe less combinations are being bought.  But still it would be a surprise if the powerball went for a record jackpot right out of a matrix change.-weshar75

Not I! When I checked that box for the 250 Million that would be the annuity amount..... I will only play when the cash amount is 100 Million +! And that goes for either game PB or MM! But now when I play the same $20.00 dollars as I always did before on PB.... the only difference is I will only get half the play now for the same amount spent (2x10 lines for $20.00) when playing PB!

Now that MM has been won and reset to $12M jackpot, PB will have a better chance to see if doubling their ticket price double their sales amounts since the cash values of the two games are so different, (will the systems players continue to buy the same amount of tickets regardless of their price).  If not, the jackpot will climb at its usual rate with fewer winners.

Previously I usually played either MegaMillions or Powerball, but not both and only provided the cash value was at least $50 million.  Since the PB went to $2, I'll probably only play when the cash value reaches at least $150 million and keep the MM figure at $50 million.  In weeks that neither MM or PB reach those levels, I'll throw my money at the state lotto instead.  I don't see the value of adding the power play since I get better odds with spending the extra dollar on the state lotto.

33 at this point play at the starting jackpot; which tells us you must play every draw.

After all $80 Mill is better than $40 Mill, and a $100 Mill is even more; no sense in stopping now.

This means at a minimum with the new $2.00 ticket price your spending about $208.00 a year, at a minimum; it all goes up from there.

Buy two combos and it's $416.00 a year, getting pricey.

We'd guess you'd be spending close to $1,000.00 a year, give or take a few compulsive buys during jackpot fever days.

Not playing every draw, well then your not a real hard core Powerball Zombie.

Come on, keep pumping that jackpot while we sit back and wait for the big $10 Billion.

That starting jackpot poll numbers might be questionable.

The jackpot increases don't seem to support it, unless people are cutting way back on the amount they are playing.

Don't know about anyone else, but I buy one line every draw, no matter what the jackpot is.

The jackpot increases so far have been only the minimum $10 million.  I think it will probably increase by at least $20 million if it is not won on Saturday though.

Well, the jackpot was won at the guaranteed $70 million level.  This isn't a good sign for MUSL that their experiment is working so far.  If three rollovers isn't enough to break out of guaranteed range, then they should probably abandon the new Powerball game and go back to the way it was before.  The alternatives, of course, are to lower the starting jackpot amount, but keep it greater than $20 million and/or lower the minimum rollovers, but keep them greater than $5 million.

Shame.

All those Power Zombies spinning their wheels pumping a jackpot at $2.00 bucks a pop.