Powerball Powerplay - Is it worth wagering it?

Reply #7

play4shekels — Sat, 06 Aug 2022 15:52:57 GMT

If I really thought it was my lucky day and I was gonna have 5 numbers right, I would spend $2 more and get another ticket with a different PB number. Still get $2 mil for 5 numbers but have another shot at the big pot. To answer the question- no, I think the Powerplay is a waste of money.

Reply #6

Stack47 — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 04:01:55 GMT

Saw where someone in PA won PB so it will be a while until I play again.

Reply #5

Orange71 — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 20:59:50 GMT

Actually, the point of my post is to show that the long-run Expected Value (weighted average return per unit bet) on a PowerPlay ticket is only higher than a regular ticket when the Jackpot is lower than a calculable threshold. (In the real world, however, we pay income taxes on net winnings, at least from a U.S. perspective, and the assumption here is all net returns are taxed at the same rate.) Most of your expected return statistically comes from the Jackpot, generally by far. The non-Jackpot... [ More ]

Reply #4

Stack47 — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 03:38:11 GMT

With odds of 1:24.8671 of winning any prize and the expected prize is most likely $100 or less, if you're playing to win something, Powerplay at worst doubles the prize for a buck more.

MM offers a $3 jackpot only ticket and eventually PB will too. Doubling the chances to win the $1 billion plus jackpot for an extra buck was another player option for those thinking it was a must win .

Reply #3

Orange71 — Wed, 27 Jul 2022 00:45:20 GMT

No question Powerplay enhances the smaller prizes, but the salient question is does it make you lose money faster than a regular ticket. Except for small jackpots, the answer is generally yes.

Reply #2

Stack47 — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 04:19:23 GMT

Depends on how many tickets you're buying but because the minimum multiplier is 2, IMO the extra buck is worth it. Most of like to dream but realistically we should expect to win a smaller secondary prize and Power Play upgrades smaller wins.

Reply #1

Orange71 — Sat, 09 Jul 2022 02:37:45 GMT

One correction: with Powerplay the prize for the match all 5 main balls without Powerball tier is $2M, regardless of the Powerplay Multiplier, whereas without Powerplay it would only $1M. I had accounted for this in my calculations.

Powerball Powerplay - Is it worth wagering it?

Orange71 — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 21:35:03 GMT

Powerball Powerplay - Is it worth paying the extra $1 (meaning, does it improve the expected value of the return per $ bet)?

Short answer - not really.

Long answer:

It depends on (a) the Expected Value of the Jackpot, and (b) whether you consider improvement of a negative Expected Value of the return (less negative return per $ bet, or in other words, smaller loss) worth it.

You can read about how Powerplay works at the Powerball website.

Basically, you pay an extra dollar per bet... [ More ]