Powerball reaching record jackpots due to the odds just got harder?

Reply #22

KY Floyd — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 21:41:27 GMT

As hard as it is to win it seems logical and more probable now than before.

Of course it is, but that's not what you said earlier. Murgatroyd said billion dollar jackpots are likely to happen 2 or 3 times per decade, and you said that you think they'll be much more frequent than that now .

I highly doubt it will be only 3 in 10 years.

You can doubt it as much as you like, but that doesn't change reality. You've obviously got no clue about the actual probability. If you think I can't... [ More ]

Reply #21

sirbrad — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 18:47:13 GMT

Yeah but the first one could have been the fluke also. The harder odds seems to favor more up in that range over time. I highly doubt it will be only 3 in 10 years. They will change the matrix again if they don't see it going up more often. We will definitely be seeing it in the middle to upper hundred millions more often.

Reply #20

Murgatroyd — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:58:36 GMT

Two or three per decade, maybe less. As time goes on and people get used to seeing 500M jackpots, and we no longer have everyone rushing out to buy lots of tickets, it may take one more rollover to reach the billion-dollar mark, which will make getting there less likely.

Reply #19

rcbbuckeye — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:49:53 GMT

There was a winner 9 draws after they changed the matrix last year. Then the big run. So it's hard to tell how often we'll see billion dollar jackpots.

I'm sure there will be more, but....how often

Reply #18

sirbrad — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:46:50 GMT

I guess they don't know much about probability either because the reason that they changed the matrix was to create Billion dollar jackpots. And that they did, a lot quicker than they had thought as they were hoping by 2022. Since they made it harder you are going to see more higher jackpots now, and Billion dollar jackpots more often as that was the reason they changed it.

Reply #17

sirbrad — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:33:47 GMT

MM needs to stay the same as I play that more because it is a dollar and better odds. I would just not play both games even less if they changed it, especially the price. I would stick to smaller jackpot games. I like to play MM until the PB gets so astronomically high that I feel it is then worth spending $2.00. Why not just add 50 more white balls and 20 more red balls then and get trillion dollar jackpots? Would just get even more ridiculous.

Reply #16

Murgatroyd — Wed, 20 Jan 2016 00:22:39 GMT

More probable now than before, yes. But not that much more likely.

Reply #15

sirbrad — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 21:03:06 GMT

The Robinson's didn't care about the probability of not winning, yet they won. So probability does not always mean much.

Reply #14

sirbrad — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 19:02:20 GMT

As hard as it is to win it seems logical and more probable now than before. Can you prove otherwise? I didn't think so. Whatever it does it does but with the higher odds it would make sense. I would not be surprised if it was back up there by March-April.

Reply #13

crazyjaney — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 03:16:03 GMT

Don't go giving the MUSL any ideas! Lol! ;)

just kidding. I really don't care either way. the run up to this last jackpot was exiting to watch.

Reply #12

travelintrucker — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 03:03:49 GMT

If MM extended the mega balls up to 18, they would have roughly the same odds as Powerball.

Reply #11

Murgatroyd — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 00:45:17 GMT

Yes, it was a fluke. Based on actual ticket sales, there was only about a 1-in-8 chance of the jackpot rolling those last two times. It happened this time, but it's about seven times more likely that a $500M+ jackpot won't make it to a billion.

Reply #10

KY Floyd — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 23:04:19 GMT

Then you clearly don't have any idea about the actual probability of a billion dollar jackpot.

Reply #9

sirbrad — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 11:31:21 GMT

I think the billion dollar ones will be much more frequent than that now. Unless the last one was a fluke.

Reply #8

Groppo — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 06:50:37 GMT

I know, and I wish they'd back-date the slips to give us the older odds.

The doggone game is hard enough to win, without the new odds.

To: The USA Lottery Administration,

Why

Reply #7

Murgatroyd — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 02:32:39 GMT

With the current odds, we can expect to see $600M jackpots once or twice a year, and $1B jackpots two or three times a decade.

Reply #6

JoshUK — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 00:58:03 GMT

I bet the I only play when it's a $200m+ jackpot people are slightly annoyed, haha.

I know I would be if I lived in the USA

Reply #5

Guru101 — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 00:48:28 GMT

I'm fairly certain we will see $1B jackpots more often now that the odds are 1 in 292 million and the price being $2. Basically the $500-600M jackpots are the new $200-300M jackpots and the $1B+ jackpots are the new $300-400M jackpots. lol

Reply #4

sirbrad — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 21:02:12 GMT

Not to mention that you would never have time to fill out all those bet slips, nor would the clerks get them all printed out in time. You would need to be printing tickets 24/7 and they take a lot of time. Plus you get machine jams also. Your eyes would be buggy after about 1,000 slips with millions to go. Even a huge team of people would probably not get it done. You would also need big boxes of those bet slips and to carry all those tickets, and people waiting in line at the store are gonna be... [ More ]

Reply #3

KY Floyd — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 17:59:41 GMT

If you could somehow manage to buy every possible combination you'd win every possible prize. Besides the 5+1 winner you'd have all 25 5+0 winners. You'd have 320 4+1 winners, and at the end of the prize list you'd have 7,625,297 0+1 winners. All told you'd have 11,751,237 winning tickets worth just under $93.469 million, plus the jackpot winning ticket. In the case of a jackpot worth $1.586 billion and a 3-way split the jackpot ticket would be worth about $328 million in cash, bringing your tot... [ More ]

Reply #2

Todd — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 15:01:55 GMT

Reply #1

dddwww — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 15:00:33 GMT

1) Each ticket costs $2, not $1

2) The advertised jackpot is what you would get in total over 29 years, the cash prize is much smaller

3) Income taxes take a substantial cut

4) The jackpot is shared if there are multiple winners, it was split 3 ways on the 1/13 drawing

Bottom line, anyone spending $600M to buy every combination would have lost about $400M if their ticket had been one of the 3 winners.

Powerball reaching record jackpots due to the odds just got harder?

thealfa — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 09:37:18 GMT

Didn't it used to be about 1 in 190 million odds and now it's 1 in 292 million odds to win the jackpot? So anyone with 292 million bucks could have won 1.5 billion right? Also, how does one claim a jackpot using a trust ? What is that to begin with? I know my state one can claim anonymously but I'm curious if one happened to live in a state where you must accept the jackpot in public, how do you get around it using a trust instead