Congrats 'Change!
Although I don't think there's anybody who posts in this forum on a regular basis that's big on PowerBall, I read something on the internet today that was kind of interesting regarding the matrix change PB will undergo next October. I'd post a link to it, but I cant remember how I got there, and I cant find it so you'll have to put up with me paraphrasing what I read in the article.
Maybe you know, maybe you don't, but PB is changing in early October. The odds of winning a JP will go from 175 million to 1 to 292 million to 1. So it's going to be a lot harder to hit the JP. There will not be any change to PB's price per line of 2 dollars. (or 3 bucks per line if you buy the Power Play option)
As you might have guessed, it's all about the bucks. Not for us players, but for the state lotteries that participate in PB. In short, the reason for the change is because they want a billion dollar jackpot, which has never happened with either PB or MM. They've done the studies, and they know that if things stay the way they are today (without any changes) there's an 8% chance that a billion dollar jackpot will happen in the next five years. That also means that there is a 92% chance that a billion dollar jackpot WONT happen in the next five years.
But by changing, the chance of a billion dollar PB jackpot happening in the next five years soars to 66%. And with the occurrence of a billion dollar jackpot, "lotto fever" will set in like it's never set in before. The lines of people at the lottery terminal will be from here to the moon all over the United States.
As for me personally, I don't care one way or the other. Yeah, I run a pool at work when either PB or MM gets over 250 million, and we play until the JP is won, but I do it for the yuks more than anything else. I guess we'll still play PB or MM after October. I mean, why not? We had little to no chance of wining before, and now we'll have even less than little to no chance. Aint no biggie baby! G5