Buying every combination for Powerball...Is it legal?Previous TopicNext Topic

There is a huge difference between 7 million and 175 million.  There's also no guarantee that, even if it were possible to buy 175 million different combinations, there wouldn't be multiple winners.

With over 175,223,510 possible combinations for Powerball @ $2/ticket you'd have to cough up $350,447,020. And whatever you win you'd likely be in the 35% tax bracket.

The logistics of accomplishing this feat would be staggering, I will not go into the tedious details; however even if you were the sole winner, after taxes you'd still be in the hole millions. Also if just one other person gets the same number that cuts jackpot in two.

Having said that, I do remember a story back in the 80's when a group of investment bankers pulled it off. Forget which lottery it was.

"The logistics of accomplishing this feat would be staggering,"

There are only five lines on most playslips so it would take 35 million. The time it would take to accurately fill them out is irrelevant even if one could get that many playslips because there isn't enough time to play them all without tying up hundreds of lottery terminals.

"Having said that, I do remember a story back in the 80's when a group of investment bankers pulled it off. Forget which lottery it was."

That was done in the Virginia Lotto game by a Australian syndicate and the rules were later changed to prevent anyone tying up a lottery terminal for a long length of time. Several other state lotteries instituted similar rules so it might not be possible to now play 1000 playslips.

It would not be worth it to invest 350M to (best case scenario) break even really because in actuality that's what it is. The after tax cash value if what you're playing for if you have 350M laying about. If the jackpot was at 500M, the after tax value would be about 200M (maybe less), assuming that they add your 350M to the prize pool (which they probably will not), how much of that goes to the jackpot? say an utopian 125M (they will keep 150M for themselves) so the new jackpot would be 325M after tax cash value, and that's if you're the sole winner. So no it's not even worth it. The advertised jackpot should be well over $1Billion to be a mathematically sound move. My opinion.

I really don't know but no one has that huge amount of money and they could try to invest $1,000,000 the most and still lose. I also don't think the powerball will reach past $325 million because everytime it's at that price, someone wins. I guess history tends to repeat itself.

Now that we've seen Powerball and their new $2 wage get up to over 300 million faster than any other time in the history of American lotteries, its only a matter of time before we see a 400 million or dare I say 1/2 Billion jackpot?...With that said, wouldn't Jackpots that big just bring out groups of people with very large bank accounts who have the ability to buy every combination and win the Jackpot?  If its not illegal to buy every combo, couldn't someone from say Wall street already be putting things in place in every state that sells Powerball so when it gets to a certain amount, their runners get to work? 42 States sell Powerball.

Was it legal for three assets managers from Connecticut  to win a $254 millions powerball jackpot after joining the pool of possible winners with 1 LOTTERY QUICK PICK?

Yes and thank goodness they were rich people.

I think some states require that the playslips are filled out by hand also.

35 million playslips by hand? Hmmm...

I think my hand would be too tired after I had filled out only 20 million or so.

And very WHITE!