[Posted by tntea: Your main focus should be on the white balls. Not the powerball number itself. It has always baffled me when customers came in trying to figure out what the PB number will be.. Heck.. get it and only it you get $3... Are you going to spend $10 trying to hit the PB for $3... ? I am not... However the focus on getting as many white balls will get you closer to the big pot.. So we begin now?]
I disagree. It's true that catching the PowerBall alone (1 in 68.96 odds) pays $3, but catching one or two white balls alone pays nothing. A player has to catch three white balls alone (1 in 290.91 odds)just to get $7. Having the red PowerBall along with those three white balls (1 in 11,927.18) enhances the payoff to $100. Similarly, catching four white balls (1 in 14,254.44) pays $100, but matching the correct red PowerBall along with those same four white balls (1 in 584,431.85) results in a $10,000 payoff. Catching all five white balls alone (1 in 3,563,608.83)will get you the $200,000 second prize; however, a complete 5+1 match (1 in 146,107,962) will win you the jackpot of at least $15,000,000. That's why the game is called PowerBall.
PowerBall is a dual matrix game. It's not about focusing on one matrix to the exclusion of the other. Selecting the correct PowerBall number dramatically increases a player's winnings beyond whatever might be won with the white ball matches alone. This game is about picking the right numbers from both matrices. While MUSL takes a gigantic edge on all the secondary prizes and the jackpot at lower levels, a player is always better off with the the correct PowerBall number than without it.