$2 PB Jackpots Now Rising More Slowly Than $1 PB Jackpots Did.

Reply #27

DC81 — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 22:54:15 GMT

Probably, since people are still buying a lot less tickets. I know I am.

Reply #26

maximumfun — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:40:51 GMT

wow. thanks Prob988! too bad I never had a teacher like you

Reply #25

ryanm — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:58:57 GMT

The PB jackpot would probably have to set a new record (over $474 million cash) in order to change the most likely outcome from single winner to more than one winner, since the last $325 million jackpot didn't sell even 100 million tickets.

Reply #24

Prob988 — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 03:55:58 GMT

The last drawing at this level generated about $93M in sales.

This of course is the equivalent of 46.5M tickets.

The Poisson distribution at this level approximates the probabilty of various numbers of winners.

The following table gives this distribution at this sales level.

k, number of winners p(m,k)

0 76.58%

1 20.44%

2 2.73%

3 0.24%

4 0.02%

At this level the most probable outcome is another rollover, and the next most probable outcome is one

Reply #23

mcginnin56 — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:50:01 GMT

I think these huge jackpot numbers are thrown around, like they were just some pie in the sky abstractions. $1,000,000 alone, can be VERY

life changing for most folks. $25-50-75 or even a hundred million is an obscene amount of money, that I don't think most people can begin to fathom.

But as you said LL, folks will spend their money as they wish, regardless if it has no basis on logic or reason.

Reply #22

maximumfun — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 12:20:37 GMT

It sure has taken powerball a while to get a run like this one... 240M$ should get people back into the game.

but at 240M$ I would also expect more multi-winner pots.

I wonder what level 'it' switches over from 'most likely a single winner' to 'more likely a multiple number of winners'?

That would make an overlap where the expected value of the GP would actually be lower (with multiple winners/per winner) than at the lower jackpot level. mind boggling. and this is why I simply play t... [ More ]

Reply #21

Lucky Loser — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 04:41:55 GMT

So, is it really the idea of possibly winning a higher jackpot, albeit, at double the cost that's cleverly drawn players back in? In other words, more money up for grabs justifies spending twice the money on essentially the same game/ odds? I mean, I'm not knocking anyone for participating but, it's like players have been cut off at the knees in terms of value...and we're talkin' about a $1 game. What used to get me (5) lines only gets me (2) now.

They want me to spend more money, double, if... [ More ]

Reply #20

RJOh — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 20:00:03 GMT

I simply refuse to play more than $2 until it reaches $250M.

It's now at $240M, it would tragic to miss out on winning it because it was $10M short.

Reply #19

Guru101 — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 22:19:57 GMT

Well, given the jackpot amount, I went ahead and plucked up $2 for a QP. At the old $1 price and at this level jackpot, I would have spent $10 for 10 lines. Now, I simply refuse to play more than $2 until it reaches $250M.

I am now simply focused on winning Hoosier Lotto. The jackpot is $5,500,000 and if I won it tonight, I'd take the annuity. That's 30 payments of $183,333.33 before taxes.

Reply #18

Prob988 — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 08:49:36 GMT

Same here.

NJ lotto right now, seen from the expectation value point, at over 18M annuity and over 13M cash, is the best game in town here.

Reply #17

KY Floyd — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:58:20 GMT

I don't know how everyone else plays, but I'm spending far less money on powerball than I did under the old system.

The dollar amount being sold tends to be a bit higher now for any given jackpot, but the number of tickets sold is lower. I see that as a minor advantage to a very select group of players: jackpot winners.

My chances of winning are exactly the same whether other players buy 10 tickets, 1 million tickets, or 100 million tickets, but my chances of being the only winner are bet... [ More ]

Reply #16

RJOh — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 03:36:43 GMT

With its jackpot 10x that of MM, PB will seldom have a better chance to attract more players than it does now. The $177M jackpot will probably help some players to ignore the $2 per ticket price.

Reply #15

Prob988 — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:28:49 GMT

Over the first 11 drawings, the sales total for the new game is actually about $27M higher than the old game run to which I referred. This is like a single extra drawing being added to the old system.

That said, there have been individual drawings where the old sales were higher than the new, 3 instances, including the last two. It would seem that it's definitely slowing.

I don't know how everyone else plays, but I'm spending far less money on powerball than I did under the old s... [ More ]

Reply #14

KY Floyd — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 04:05:13 GMT

AFAIK, they have to pay for all those extra lower tier prizes out of the reserve fund or what would have been their profit. The rules specify what percentage of sales go to the prize pools for each level, with the jackpot getting about 32%. I may have missd it, but I never noticed any wiggle room about that in the official rules. The reserve fund gets 2%, but I'm not sure if it's 2% of sales (4 cents per ticket) or 2% of the 50% that goes towards prizes (2 cents per ticket). Either way, it would... [ More ]

Reply #13

Lucky Loser — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 03:53:23 GMT

I certainly agree with you here. There's never any guarantee for a winner on any draw no matter how many tickets are sold. Each draw is completely separate from the next and a no winner streak can actually be indefinite. This is why lotteries enjoy the no winners...all they do is profit off of all the losing tickets sold...especially those who spent hundreds of dollars trying to rope in the winning combination.

Good post.

L.L.

Reply #12

ryanm — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 03:47:40 GMT

In THEORY, the cash value for Powerball would have been $115 million for last night's draw, but in REALITY, it probably was only the $107 million they advertised (the drop in annuity was probably because of falling interest rates), because PB has had to raid their jackpot fund to pay larger than expected payouts for their cash prizes. Mega Millions is probably doing the same thing with their jackpots now too, because their pot increased by only the minimum $2 million annuity ($1 million cash), e... [ More ]

Reply #11

maximumfun — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 01:20:14 GMT

KYF - I hope you are right

Reply #10

KY Floyd — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 01:03:42 GMT

What makes you think it should be won next time, especially with 2 tickets? If they sell 25 million tickets, which is a fairly reasonable number if the lottoreport figures for the last drawing are correct, there's about a 1 in 7 chance of a winner, and if it is won it would almost certainly be a single winner.

Reply #9

KY Floyd — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:59:59 GMT

I haven't been paying close attention to the relative values of the cash and annuity amounts, but right now PB's cash value is just over 68% of the annuity value. I think it was closer to 65 or even 64% last time I checked. MM is just over 77.8%, which I think is also a bit higher than it was a while back. At 65% the annuity value would be $185.5 million, or $8.5 million more than what we're seeing right now, based on the reported cash value of $120.6 million.

The sales figures on snip indica... [ More ]

Reply #8

maximumfun — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:55:55 GMT

weshar - i did not notice that the jackpot fell short of the advertised amount. yikes! that doesnt happen that often. yet another good reason to take the cash value (yes i know they purchase an annuity and your money is 'locked' in)... take the money and run! before PB falls

Reply #7

dallascowboyfan — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:25:07 GMT

Reply #6

LottoBoner — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 20:28:44 GMT

an easy remedy to the lacking powerball sales is to have those buy 10 get $3 promotions...i personally dont care for those promotions as they force you to buy for two draws instead of one...

but i have seen many a sucker fall for it...and nobody understands it the first time because it really is stupid or illogical

it would be interesting to see a comparison of sales by state as to revenue with the promotion versus without the promotion..the promotions are not universal.

Powerball had a... [ More ]

Reply #5

weshar75 — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 20:00:16 GMT

I noticed that when the jackpot drawing come last night the jackpot was not even $164 million it was $158.8 million. So powerball did not even sell enough tickets to get to the advertised jackpot. So they raised it to $177 million which is a $18.2 million increase hopefully with the 4 days of sales they will be able to get to the advertised jackpot annuity.-weshar75

Reply #4

Lucky Loser — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 19:55:06 GMT

Well, let's here...and analyze a bit. Now gas prices can go up and we get less gas for the same dollar but, this cool with Lucky 'cause I GOTTA HAVE IT to get around. Same with food...I gotta eat. I DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE POWERALL IN MY LIFE...and for this matter, Mega Millions either with these odds. They seem, in my opinion, to be comparing these games to actual necessities in life! WTF are they smoking?

This would be the opportune time to take a stand against all this madness. Why would any... [ More ]

Reply #3

maximumfun — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 19:09:51 GMT

Reply #2

RJOh — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 18:27:07 GMT

It's becoming clearer every drawing that the newest version of PB can't sell the number of tickets it once did as long as it's completing against MM with similar odds and payouts for half the price.

Reply #1

maximumfun — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 17:56:49 GMT

Very likely true Prob988. It should be won this next time... 2 tickets each with just over 60M value... and if it is, it will really hurt PB.

What PB is hoping (desperately) is to have a run that will make **IT** top dog - bigger than MM's run earlier this year!

Chaos theory would give the nod back to MM to have another big run and secure its top billing.

$2 PB Jackpots Now Rising More Slowly Than $1 PB Jackpots Did.

Prob988 — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 12:37:05 GMT

We have now completed an 11th rollover and have a powerball jackpot at $177M. A relatively recent example of the Powerball $1 jackpot system was between April 27, 2011 and June 01, 2011 where at the same point the jackpot was $200M. (It was won at that point.)

Bigger and better may not be bigger and better all the time.

By playing fewer tickets people are getting less positive feedback with the small wins, I think, and over the long term this may cause enthusiasm for Powerball to decline f... [ More ]