What are the chances of ever winning the 2nd place prize for PB or MM?

Hi everyone,

I play both the PB and MM regularly and though like everyone else would love to win the jackpot I really play in hopes of winning the 2nd prize since that seems a bit more reasonable as every having a chance to win. Just wondering if one would have a decent chance of winning the 2nd place prize over a course of years or is it still just impossible to have that hope. I know it's all random in terms of those who win and some people will play for 30 years and never win and others will play once and win.  I also play Mass Cash in my state because it's a 5/35 game and top prize is 100k yet never do well at all on that one. My memory is not the greatest so if I asked a similar question to this in the past I apologize.

There's two places near me that sold 2nd place MM tickets on 3/27 and 3/30. Both stores are maybe 1/2 mile apart. I could'nt believe it so i went to both and took pics, but i can't get them off my phone for now. Both were for 250k. Just my luck i played on the other side of town.

Hi RedStang,

That's amazing that 2 places near you in March sold 2nd place MM tickets. I don't know of any places near me that have sold a 2nd place ticket for MM or PB.

You apparently assume if you don't know about it, it never happened.  Do you regularly check your state lottery website to see where the second place winners were sold? 

The odds of winning a second prizes are 35 or 46 times those of winning a jackpot.

Heres one of them. There's also two more 2nd place winning stores about 35-40 mins away.

The chances of winning MM 2nd prize is 1:3,904,701 and the chances of winning the 2nd prize in PB is 1:5,153,633... your better off with Mass cash.

Missouri had 1 person win $1 million on the Powerball last night,  1 lucky young woman won, and it was a quick pick.

Happy Spending

Was it you, Mz D?    

Within the first 1 1/2 years of playing, one of the stores I've bought from sold a 2nd place QP on MM. Another place I shopped at had won the states big game 3 years prior, also on a QP.

Yes some may play 30 years and nothing, but some people also play once or twice and win $20+ million after taxes.

In my opinion, a player would have a much, much better chance with matching (5) numbers and the results are proving this. See, there's something to consider in the PB deal which most players aren't taking into account. Here it is: matching (5) and then getting the PB IS NOT DIFFERENT than simply matching a str8 (6) of (6). Why? Because ALL THE NUMBERS ARE STILL PERMUTATED TOGETHER AND FORM THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF COMBINATIONS in the end.

It's essentially a (6) number game with (1-59) on the first (5) and now a (1-35) on the sixth number. No matter how you do the math, the total amount of combinations in the same. If you do the math on a (1-59) game, and then multiply that total by (35) times, which is the PB, it comes out the same. No magic here.

You will always see more (5) number winners than all (6). Hope I helped.

L.L.

The last place you should look is on any state's Odds and Payoff charts because who knows how they figure the odds. There are 5,006,386 possible combinations in a 5/59 matrix, but the charts give odds of matching 5 + 0 as 5,153,633 to 1. Because they give 55 to 1 odds against matching the bonus number, I'm assuming they base their odds on the number of QPs needed to be purchased before a QP player should expect to match the bonus number. So I'm assuming their higher number for matching 5 + 0 is also based on how many QPs should be purchased before expecting to match 5 + 0.

We only have to purchase 35 tickets to guarantee matching the bonus number and guarantee matching the bonus number three times by getting 105 tickets. For $220 worth of QPs, PB expects only two bonus numbers matches. The odds against matching 5 + 0 are about the same as matching all 6 numbers in a 6/42 lotto game.

When you compare the payoffs for matching 3 or 4 $1 Mass Cash numbers to $1 MM and $2 PB numbers, Mass Cash is a much better bet. And with odds of 324,631 to 1 for matching 5 numbers, the odds are half than the odds against winning $10,000 playing either MM and PB.

Actually, the odds on the charts are CORRECT, because the odds of matching the bonus ball ONLY are 55 to 1, after factoring in the chances of matching the bonus ball with one or more white balls.  The odds of matching the five white balls ONLY are 5,153,633 to 1, because you have to multiply the total number of white ball combinations by 35/34, as the odds of NOT hitting the bonus ball are 34/35.

I didn't say the odds on the charts were INCORRECT, I said "who knows how they figure them".

"The odds of matching the five white balls ONLY are 5,153,633 to 1, because you have to multiply the total number of white ball combinations by 35/34, as the odds of NOT hitting the bonus ball are 34/35."

If you multiple 5,006,386 (the number of combos in a 5/59 matrix) by "35/34" you get 5,153,633. That I understand, but how do they get the figure 1 in 55?

I didn't say the odds on the charts were INCORRECT, I said "who knows how they figure them".

Actuall the odds are calculated the only way that makes sense. 

First, the total number of possible combinations is calculated, then the number of winning combinations for each level are calculated and to get the odds of winning at each level, the numbers of winning combinations at each level are divided by the number of possible combinations.

 possible combos of 5/59 + 1/35 numbers = 175223510
 MATCH    ODDS            WINNING COMBOS  ODDS 1 CHANCES
 5/5+B   1 : 175223510      1              1 : 175223510
 5/5+0   1 : 5153633        34             1 : 5153633
 4/5+B   1 : 648976         270            1 : 648976
 4/5+0   1 : 19088          9180           1 : 19088
 3/5+B   1 : 12245          14310          1 : 12245
 3/5+0   1 : 360            486540         1 : 360
 2/5+B   1 : 706            248040         1 : 706
 1/5+B   1 : 111            1581255        1 : 111
 0/5+B   1 : 55             3162510        1 : 55
 ____________________________________________________________
 overall odds 1 : 31.8             

"wondering if one would have a decent chance of winning the 2nd place prize over a course of years"

It depends on what you mean be "a decent chance." Imagine that you buy 100 tickets for every single PB drawing over a 30 year period. You'll have bought a total of 312,000 tickets. That will give you about an 8% chance of winning the 2nd place prize. You'll have about a 92% chance of not winning the 2nd place prize. For MM it's about 6% and 94%.