Mid-Missouri United States
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August 31, 2002
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I haven't seen the list for awhile but I know it use to be Indiana was the first and Missouri was second in prizes won from Powerball. Has anyone seen a recent list of how the states rank on top prizes being won. I'd love to see it.
NY United States
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October 16, 2005
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Quote: Originally posted by sirbrad on Mar 18, 2007
Another one in Oregon. Seems like many of the big jackpots are being won there. What crap.
Does 2 in the last 4 years count as "many"? Since January 1, 2003 there has been one other winner in Oregon, in October 2005. Since then there have been 3 winners in Missouri (two of them over $100 million cash), and 2 each from Arizona and Iowa ($95 million and a piddling $54 million). Since 1/1/2003 Pennsylvania has the record with 8 winners, half of them for more than $60 million cash.
United States
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June 16, 2006
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Floyd, I posted the same thing basically awhile back.. someone was talking about Idaho or Wyoming 'always winning, and I discussed the population of the state of Pennsylvania vs. those two states. I THINK PA had 4 winners in one year a few years ago...
Where the winning lottery ticket was bought is as random as picking the numbers themselves - these things all go in cycles, they will rotate after awhile, they always do. Just ask Pennsylvania.
Now, if the last 3-4 winners in a row came from my state, I'd probably quit playing for awhile because the odds of that streak continuing in my state are probably not very good, I wouldn't think.
NY United States
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For various reasons our memories can be very selective. Oregon had the PB record for about a year, and the big jackpots are easier to remember since there aren't as many of them. Pennsylvania has a population of about 12.5 million. The only other PB states with even half as many people are Indiana and North Carolina, and the latter has only been a PB state for a short time. If Pennsylvania didn't have a lot of winners it would be unusual (assuming that Pennsylvanians play at the same rate as people inother PB states). The 8 wins in PA included 2 sets of back to back wins in 2004. Other back to back wins happened in Minnesota (2004), and 3 in a row in Indiana (2003). Population isn't the only factor, but it is a very big factor.
As far as repeat winners, you should think about living in the present instead of the past. The first line of your second paragraph is exactly right. Where a winner is sold depends on the numbers people play and the random numbers that are drawn. When your numbers don't come up it's a simple function of the odds and not how many previous winners came from your state.
United States
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Quote: Originally posted by KY Floyd on Mar 19, 2007
For various reasons our memories can be very selective. Oregon had the PB record for about a year, and the big jackpots are easier to remember since there aren't as many of them. Pennsylvania has a population of about 12.5 million. The only other PB states with even half as many people are Indiana and North Carolina, and the latter has only been a PB state for a short time. If Pennsylvania didn't have a lot of winners it would be unusual (assuming that Pennsylvanians play at the same rate as people inother PB states). The 8 wins in PA included 2 sets of back to back wins in 2004. Other back to back wins happened in Minnesota (2004), and 3 in a row in Indiana (2003). Population isn't the only factor, but it is a very big factor.
As far as repeat winners, you should think about living in the present instead of the past. The first line of your second paragraph is exactly right. Where a winner is sold depends on the numbers people play and the random numbers that are drawn. When your numbers don't come up it's a simple function of the odds and not how many previous winners came from your state.
How silly of me to try and explain the odds of consecutive winners coming from a sparsely populated state as opposed to a heavily populated state. PA has how many people, and last had a winner when ?
What state do you think has better odds of having, say, 4 winners in a row ? A state with 20 million people playing the lottery, or a state with 1.7 million people playing the lottery ?
I fully believe things go in cycles, the problem is there are MANY cycles to choose from, and that's why it's hard to pick a winning set of numbers.
Still, I don't even know why I try to explain my view, since I'm always wrong.
NY United States
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Quote: Originally posted by guesser on Mar 19, 2007
How silly of me to try and explain the odds of consecutive winners coming from a sparsely populated state as opposed to a heavily populated state. PA has how many people, and last had a winner when ?
What state do you think has better odds of having, say, 4 winners in a row ? A state with 20 million people playing the lottery, or a state with 1.7 million people playing the lottery ?
I fully believe things go in cycles, the problem is there are MANY cycles to choose from, and that's why it's hard to pick a winning set of numbers.
Still, I don't even know why I try to explain my view, since I'm always wrong.
Here' a really simple idea. Imagine your state has sold 10 winners in a row, and the adjoining state that's just 100 yards away hasn't sold a winner in 5 years. Because the odds of your state selling 11 winners in a row are staggering you walk down the road and buy a ticket in the other state. I buy a ticket in your state, and because I'm a really mean bastard I play the same numbers as you. Did I somehow decrease your chances of winning?
Obviously a state that sells more tickets has a better chance of producing a winner, but what does that have to do with your chances of winning? If your state only sells 2% of the tickets for a game then there's always a 98% chance that the winner will be from a different state, so why would you even bother playing? The reason it's unlikely that a state that has sold 4 winners in a row will sell a 5th isn't because there's some magical force that breaks the cycle. It's because even if that state sells 10% of the tickets there's a 90% chance that the winning ticket will be sold in one of the states that sold the other 90% of the tickets. Some people spend a lot of time looking at that "cycle" but it's that 10/90 probability that results in the outcome every single time. The probability runs the cylces, but some people choose to believe that the cycles are somehow in charge of what happens.
I don't care what state sells a winner. What I care about is me being the winner, and that has nothing to do with how many tickets are sold in different states. The only thing that determines if I win is whether or not the 1 combination that is drawn out of the millions of possible combnations happens to match one fo the combinations that I picked out of the millions that I had to choose from. Cycles have nothing to do with how hard it is to pick a winning combination. It's just the sheer number of combinations to choose from.
PA United States
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October 6, 2005
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Funny thing is my friend just said "Oregon again!" Perhaps because Oregon got a lot of attetion when the West family won the record jackpot, so it is remembered more so. As far as PA winning it, I really don't pay attention unless it is my ticket. Unless it is me, I refuse to acknowledge that PA even won. lol.