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

Reply #48

JADELottery — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:10:06 GMT

The pitiful jackpot growth seems to support that perception.

Reply #47

mightwin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:32:23 GMT

yeah here it goes again.......more of the minimum increases lol. Other than the good size jackpot a little bit ago(which it has gotten up that high when the game was only $1) powerball is looking pretty dismal lately.

Reply #46

JADELottery — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:18:35 GMT

Another jackpot won, boy, glad we didn't pay anything in to it and at $2.00 bucks a line, whew...

Come on everyone, get it up to $10,000,000,000.00 so I can start playing again.

Reply #45

DC81 — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 21:39:08 GMT

Not at all surprised that Powerball continues to not meet expectations, I knew it was going to happen when they announced it. They keep screwing with things to try and get those massive jackpots they want and it keeps flying back in their faces. IDK how the company in charge of making this decisions couldn't be embarrassed that after all their fiddling over the last few years to try and get a record breaking jackpot, they have continued to fail.. It also doesn't help that MM is currently (well n... [ More ]

Reply #44

JADELottery — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 06:56:19 GMT

Shame.

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

Reply #43

ryanm — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 06:41:33 GMT

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.

Reply #42

ryanm — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:43:26 GMT

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.

Reply #41

rcbbuckeye — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 13:18:06 GMT

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

Reply #40

JADELottery — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:46:04 GMT

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.

Reply #39

JADELottery — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:53:23 GMT

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... [ More ]

Reply #38

Uff Da! — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:10:37 GMT

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.... [ More ]

Reply #37

RJOh — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:23:57 GMT

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.

Reply #36

BaristaExpress — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:10:29 GMT

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

Reply #35

weshar75 — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 04:45:01 GMT

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

Reply #34

mymonthlypicks — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:45:20 GMT

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.

Reply #33

GiveFive — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:09:47 GMT

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 f... [ More ]

Reply #32

savagegoose — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:17:58 GMT

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.

Reply #31

RJOh — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:32:18 GMT

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.... [ More ]

Reply #30

GiveFive — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:58:26 GMT

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.

Reply #29

OscarRamb — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:44:07 GMT

To anyone wondering how high of an amount the jackpot could reach this is what i sent to MUSL and the response i got:

Hi,

with the new game (after January 14th) what do you expect the new jackpots to be? A lot of people are throwing around crazy numbers but what do your mathematical simulations suggest? You stated that the average would go up to 255 million from 141 million but do you have estimates on how high they would go? Because on a lot of blogs people predict that they'll go as h... [ More ]

Reply #28

RJOh — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:12:58 GMT

Jackpot level means nothing to me, it's the cash value that tells me the real value of a jackpot. At $2 a play, PowerBall cash value would have to be twice what MegaMillions is ever likely to be before I would play again which might make it jackpot level at more than $800M. I usually play 20 or so lines when I play and right now I can't see paying $40 for what is being offered by MM for $20.

Reply #27

OldSchoolPa — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:49:02 GMT

The number of people buying a ticket for the jackpot has no effect on your chances of winning. Only the number combinations affect your chances of winning and they are clearly stated on the back of the play slip or on the website. I play every drawing as the amount of the jackpot is irrelevant until you have a ticket with the matching numbers. Until that time, it is just a hope and a dream

Reply #26

OldSchoolPa — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:46:40 GMT

That sounds good, but what if the numbers you now only play on Mega Millions because it is a $1 ticket game roll for Powerball? But since you didn't buy a Powerball ticket, you didn't win. I think I will shell out the 2 bucks for my chance at millions.

Reply #25

lotsofwins — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:47:56 GMT

thrifty I tend to play when the jackpots are lower-(yes, it's hard to hit powerball, but my reasoning is that its even tougher when you get all the people who don't normally play, playing the bigger jackpots

Reply #24

rdgrnr — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:35:03 GMT

Roger that, Dallas

Reply #23

rdgrnr — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:29:18 GMT

At a guess I wouldn't expect my annual spending on PB to exceed $20.

Wow.

Last of the big-time spenders.

Reply #22

blackjack26241 — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:33:15 GMT

If you look at the new payouts it does'nt pay to play powerplay as much as it use to, playing a $2 tickets get's you about the same and you still can win a Million so why pay another $1 the new payouts suck

Reply #21

Prob988 — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:12:58 GMT

I plan to look at the expectation value, the ratio the ratio of the overall prize to the cost times the odds.

I have already calculated the fixed expectation value for lower prizes. Because of the $1M second prize, this expectation is still around 0.17 so any increase has to come from the jackpot.

Historically big lotteries have had expectation values close to 1.0 and even on occassion exceeding that. For Powerball as it has operated up to now, the pretax expectation value approaches unity... [ More ]

Reply #20

THRIFTY — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:21:28 GMT

Man that thing will jump like fire.$40 millions is a life changing amount with cash value of more than $20 millions plus with a chance of winning $1 million for the same price.No wonder many players will start playing at $40 millions.This new powerball game matrix will create some gambling problem.

It seems to me like a big prize scratch game.

Reply #19

THRIFTY — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 00:04:24 GMT

50% playing at the starting jackpot of $40 millions before it goes to $100 millions is not bad.They said that the jackpot will increase by $10 millions multiply by 6 drawings =$60 millions plus $40 millions =$100 millions. It will reach $100 millions in no time since 42 states will be playing.

Reply #18

THRIFTY — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:41:20 GMT

What's your answer.I guess it is $250 millions since you know your maths.I can't believe that 50% of you guys will start playing at $40 millions.The reason powerball increased the jackpot was because many players were playing the jackpot when it reached $100 millions.

I will make that extra dollar work by waiting until it reaches $100 millions to start playing.I feel that $2 for a $100 millions starting jackpot is a great deal.

The powerball will jump so many times to $100 millions t... [ More ]

Reply #17

dallascowboyfan — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:19:27 GMT

$40 million sounds good to me

Reply #16

KY Floyd — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:06:38 GMT

I won't make a decison based on an arbitrary amount. Spending $2 for a chance at a cash jackpot of $100 million or more becomes stupid shortly beyond the point where the same $2 would make you twice as likely to win a Megamillions jackpot that's half of the PB jackpot. Spending twice as much for the same odds demands a possible reward that's at least twice as big. The bigger 2nd prize means PB offers a very slightly better risk to reward ratio at double the jackpot value, but the ratio becomes e... [ More ]

Reply #15

JADELottery — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:34:54 GMT

That's ok.

We have to factor in any number of lottery industry butt-plugs skewing the results as well.

Reply #14

savagegoose — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:17:20 GMT

hey im not even in usa, so i shouldnt have voted. but i mist say if giviern the option of sending $2 via paypal and getting a reliable ticket purchase. id start at $250M

Reply #13

JADELottery — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:52:06 GMT

Hey, every answer has a vote now.

It's getting interesting.

Reply #12

ressuccess — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:43:47 GMT

My vote is when the Powerball Jackpot exceeds United States record.

Reply #11

JADELottery — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:23:20 GMT

Oh..., this is some good information so far.

Everyone vote in on this one.

Reply #10

kapla — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:59:15 GMT

The best way to know if I like the new format is to play the first couple of draws. Then will reveiw.

Reply #9

marcie — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:32:25 GMT

I won't be playing all the time I rarely do play the P.B. but I will play it tonight. I guess it is going up like everything else so the more money the more you get? Or is this just a New Policy they are starting

Reply #8

Boney526 — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:26:49 GMT

I will only play when it's at 250 million up. I did the same thing when it was a dollar, with the multiplier. Now the multiplier doesn't seem to important, so it's essentially the same. I don't think sales will be too bad, as I'd imagine the JP will grow pretty quick, especially starting at 40 million. Most people don't care that much, 40 million is a good chunk of change. I think most will just play fewer lines.

Plus if half the people played the same number of tickets as before - then... [ More ]

Reply #7

LottoGuyBC — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:52:34 GMT

like a wildfire

Reply #6

HoLeeKau — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:35:00 GMT

I've always played every draw even with the smaller starting JPs, and have always played the powerplay. So I'll continue to play every draw, but no powerplay.

Reply #5

savagegoose — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:41:02 GMT

looks like only half the people are going ot play at the start, and a quarter are going to wait till it jackpots to $250 mill! i imagine the jackpots will collect slower if only half are playing. still 40m is a good start.

i weonder how fast the millions will collect

Reply #4

weshar75 — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:36:10 GMT

I am playing every drawing this year of powerball just one line with powerplay for each drawing so $3. That is $6 a week and only $30 in a month time so not bad after all. Good luck to all who play.-weshar75

Reply #3

rcbbuckeye — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 02:35:03 GMT

I always played the powerplay, just hoping to hit for a million, so for me, nothing changes. Still play for 2 bucks.

Reply #2

spy153 — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:07:21 GMT

Me too, it never has mattered that much. I always played no matter what. But guess I will have to be more picky about when I play., as in how often. We are in a recession, after all

Reply #1

New York — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:29:57 GMT

I'll start with the beginning.

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

JADELottery — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:20:13 GMT

Most of you probably know my answer.

Let's see yours.