How often do winning tickets have the same Power & one of five numbers?Prev TopicNext Topic

• Redd55

  

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  Mar 12, 2015, 2:54 pm

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  Hello! I'm new so forgive me if I screw up. I have searched for an answer to this question but have found bupkis.  I always feel that when my power or mega number is one of the 5 picks, my ticket is a wash. Am I being irrational? 

   

  Thanks!
• RJOh

  

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  Mar 12, 2015, 5:22 pm

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  YES!

   * you don't need to buy every combination, just the winning ones * 

         
  
• Redd55

  

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  Mar 12, 2015, 5:53 pm

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  Haha! 
• Redd55

  

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  Mar 13, 2015, 10:41 am

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  I was looking for some info or opinion supporting or disproving my gut feeling.  I've tried researching it and found nothing. Scanning the past winning tickets I found nothing but that is very difficult to do and might have missed instances when it occurred.  So, again, does having the PB number as one of the 5 numbers makes it even more difficult to win PB?  TIA
• Original Bey

  

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  Mar 13, 2015, 10:48 am

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  January 10th - Powerball

  March 10th Mega Millions

   

  Just go to the official websites and review past winning combinations. I don't know of anyone who tracks this. The 5 balls are pulled from one pool and the bonus balls from another. So this can occur at anytime.

  "Do everything you can. Then, leave the rest to luck."
• Redd55

  

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  Mar 13, 2015, 10:55 am

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  Thank you!
• Original Bey

  

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  Mar 20, 2015, 11:11 pm

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  We have another occurrence in this evening's MM drawing. 7 white ball/7 megaball

  "Do everything you can. Then, leave the rest to luck."
• destinycreation

  

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  Mar 20, 2015, 11:45 pm

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  In response to Redd55

  Quote: Originally posted by Redd55 on Mar 12, 2015

  Hello! I'm new so forgive me if I screw up. I have searched for an answer to this question but have found bupkis.  I always feel that when my power or mega number is one of the 5 picks, my ticket is a wash. Am I being irrational? 

   

  Thanks!

  Go to the Blue "Results" tab at the top of the page > Select "Search Past Results" > choose your state > choose your jackpot game > Example: type in "2" in the first positional box, then type in "2" in the bonus ball box > choose match "1" number for both the pick 5 positional numbers and the bonus number > choose your date range

  The results will be the jackpot game results, where the number "2" appeared in both the 5 white balls AND the bonus ball.

  It would take you a while to search every number like this, but I don't know of any other way to do it.

  Good luck to you.
• Murgatroyd

  

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  Mar 24, 2015, 8:40 pm

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  The Mega/Power ball will match one of the white balls about 6.7% of the time on Mega Millions, 8.5% on Powerball.

  The exact probability can be calculated as follows (I'm using MM for the explanation; PB can be calculated by changing the numbers to reflect the pool size of 59 instead of 75):

  Whatever the Mega ball is, the probability that the first white ball drawn will not match it is 74/75.

  The probability that the second will also not match it is 73/74

  The third, fourth and fifth are 72/73, 71/72, and 70/71.

  So the probability that none of the five will be the same as the Mega ball is (75/74)*(73/74)*(72/73)*(71/72)*(70/71) = 70/75 ≈ 0.933.

  The probability that one of them will match is therefore about 0.067, or 6.7%.

   

  A lot of other things about the lottery can be calculated in similar ways.