$2 Investment Turned Into $400 Million.

$400 million Woo Hoo good luck everyone.......

Love reading the comments when the jackpots get sky high!

'Poor' California PB 5 out of 6 and just over $424K, para-mutuel benefits that state only in most cases!

$400,000,000

I think that I will make a small wager

 Can you imagine yourself with over $100,000,000.00 spending money? 

 May God Bless the winner or winners.

Many people like you and me will jump into this Wager hoping to be the winner !!!

GOOD LUCK FELLOW POWERBALLIONS!!!!

I A GOING TO BUY FOR 3 CONSECUTIVE DRAWS AND SLEEP SOUNDLY!!!

NEXT EVEN MEGA MILLION IS CREEPING TOO AT SLOW PACE IT IS ALSO 147 MILLION TOO

I am expecting a "foreign" player to win this current Powerball jackpot run and make history...Watch this space.

400M$  fabulous!

Wow... it rolled

You Have to Be In It to Win It!

OK.. Here comes the lottery  fever... With the new odds { 1 in 294million} lets see how many more times it's going to roll..

Yes, this time the winner will be from Sweden! 

I would like to see it punch through $500 million and if it goes on to 1 billion that would be perfect.

A blind man can feel an elephant but, he still doesn't know what it is.

The 11-month wait is over. LOL

The odds of 1 in 292,201,338 are bad enough, please don't make them even worse.

Yes, I'm doing that right now.

I would settle for a cool million dollars myself that would put me sweet in the money.-weshar75

They need to sell about 615 million more tickets ($1.23 billion sales) to reach a billion from the current pool

I am thinking the progression will go $450M, $600M, $800M, $1B if it can continue. The $1B mark will be at least the 96th percentile, which means on average we can expect a winner prior to or in this drawing 96% of the time. The 99th percentile would bring a jackpot of $1.5B

Is this how I calculate the odds that a winning ticket will be sold?

(1/292,201,338)x(# of tickets sold)

Example

(0.00000000342466)x(100,000,000)=.34 or 34%

1 - e^-(tickets/combinations)

100000000/292201338 = 0.342229781

e = 2.718281828459...

see  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(mathematical_constant)

1- e^(-0.342229781) = 0.2898150013

28.98% chance of winner(s)

This is how MUSL calculates. Simply multiplying odds by tickets gives an approximation but does not factor in duplicate tickets

Thanks!

It's going to a billion!

• Me too

I not only dream of winning this like others.  I also have a plan in place waiting to activate it! 

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you will fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you?  NOTHING!" Jim Rohn

What a great time to slip out the back door, unnoticed, with that $88 Million cash MM jackpot!

That's a good one.  Welcome to Lottery Post.

Okay. I'm in. $400 mil come to daddy.

Win and disappear

$400M? That's Beautiful!!

Jarmila Gajdosova professional tennis player.

Anyone  think by draw time the jackpot will be more like 425 mill? Last draw went up 54 mill and I think it is now on more people's radar and frequent players will buy more tickets.

Before this weekend the sales estimate for Wednesday was $130 million, I think it will be $180 million which would bring the annuity to $450M. We'll see

How the mighty have fallen.

Just under a year ago PB jumped from 395 to 564. Just over 2 years ago MM went from 400 to 636, and just under 4 years ago MM went from 393 to 656. I'd hope that 400+ is where sales will start to increase significantly, but who knows?

Hi and Happy New Year everyone!

With all the excitiment, I love reading the comments too! Everyone's excited!

(Comments that are uplifting and encouraging towards each other...you can never have too much of that!)

The possibility that my ticket, which currently has a $2 value, is worth $400m....Yep!!! Praise the Lord and Let the fun begin!!!

Hope you all have a safe and blessed 2016!

Yeah bring it!

Yikes, are all these directly from draw-to-draw?

With 54 million tickets sold, the chances of having a jackpot winner was around 20%, but sales were slightly higher than the last two $300 million plus jackpots. As you said historically "jackpot frenzy" usually starts at $400 million, but sales need to double to get a 50% chance of a jackpot winner.

Happy new year everyone!, hopefully it will be a great start for one of us on Wednesday 

 I just saw on CNN Morning Show a short piece about this $400 Million jackpot. The word is spreading like wildfire.  They showed a clip of Gloria C. Mackenzie the Florida winner of Power Ball jackpot worth $590,500,000.00. She was walking toward her car after validating her ticket.

 Good Luck everybody!!

Hopin it rolls to $1,000,000,000!

I think it will because I believe it will not be won until EVERY possible number combination is sold.

Another problem w/ winning a big JP.

Every time the JP gets in record territory your name gets mentioned again.

The scammers couldn't forget you if they wanted, they're just reminded to give you another try.

That's when I buy my next ticket.

Which is why unless you have the option of anonymity you should change your name.

Jack Hoffman anyone?

Will take whatever lady luck gives me. That is 5/6 with powerplay :).

Since the new change come to powerball there has been lot of draw but the 10x powerplay option has not been added

I will just buy 1 or 2 ticks with powerplay options and stick with Megamillions at least odds are okay there. But good luck to everyone buying tickets.

Multiple winners will be great.

I know a lot of people that still wouldn't play.

Rolling, rolling, rolling. Higher, higher, and higher. 

Love large jackpots. Hoping for a $billion jackpot.

Best of luck to all participants!

$400 mil?- Oh l like that! 

Actually, the current PB run is ahead of last Feb's Jackpot. "Only" took 17 vs 20 draws to reach $400+ million .

     DRAW DATE  JACKPOT         CASH          DRAW DATE  JACKPOT                       CASH

  1. 11/07/15        40                24.9           12/03/14          40                            25.3

  2. 11/11/15        50                30.5           12/06/14          50                            31.6

  3. 11/14/15        60                36.7           12/10/14          60                            37.8

  4. 11/18/15        70                42.8           12/13/14          70                            44.1

  5. 11/21/15        80                48.9           12/17/14          80                            51.7

  6. 11/25/15         90               55.1           12/20/14          90                            58.2

  7. 11/28/15       100               61.3           12/24/14        100                            64.6

  8. 12/02/15       110               67.4           12/27/14        110                            71.0

  9. 12/05/15       127               77.9           12/31/14        120                            77.2

10. 12/09/15       145               88.0           01/03/15        131                            84.3

11. 12/12/15       164               99.6           01/07/15        146                            95.1

12. 12/16/15       180             112.1           01/10/15        162                          105.5

13. 12/19/15       202             125.9           01/14/15        176                          117.3

14. 12/23/15       227             141.0           01/17/15        194                          129.3

15. 12/26/15       255             158.4           01/21/15        208                          142.7

16. 12/30/15       300             184.2           01/24/15        230                          157.8

17. 01/02/16       355.8(334) 218.4(205)   01/28/15        261                          179.1

18. 01/06/16       400             244.8           01/31/15        289                          198.4

19.                                                              02/04/15       324(317)                  226(220.6)

20.                                                              02/07/15       394.5(380,360)        266.6(256.8, 250.5)

21.                                                              02/11/15       564.1(500,485,450) 381.11(337.8, 327.7, 304.1)

What's your guess for a total if it rolled three more times?

750M$?

I'd guess in three more draws it will be around 610-640

Well based on that data I posted of last year's big jackpot, if it were to roll over three more times, by the time of the drawing it would be at least $750-$800 million. I remember watching the mega millions drawing a few years ago when it hit a record $656 million and they said if there were no winners the pot would jump to $950 million.

Seeing how it now has a head start of 3 rollovers and is now picking up steam, is 1$ more than MM and now has worse odds maybe we will indeed get to see it post a new record, maybe even  850M-950M$, would be quite entertaining. 

A single winner had better be from on of the anonymous states. 

UNCLE SAM (The I.R.S.) wins in every lottery, and they don't even buy a ticket.

I unfortunately live in New York State, about the worse state to win lottery, high taxes, can't collect the winnings anonymously. But Vermont is close by, where you can collect the winnings anonymously through a trust. I played there a couple weeks ago and checked the multi-draw column for 10 draws so I'm good for the next 3 weeks.

They say that money doesn't solve all your problems or even "buy you happiness." If the lottery gods are listening I'm willing be the guinea pig to put that theory to the ultimate test and I'm pretty sure it will make me happy. I promise to donate 10% to reputable charities as a start.

Aren't New Hampshire, Delaware and Maryland anonymous too? Might be closer. and Delaware would be state tax free.

Indeed. And that's because they're the ones printing and selling the lotto tickets!

If it does hit a billion, I hope people don't cash in their 401Ks and IRAs to try to get the huge pay out.

In my thread, "Are you ready for the attention", I talk about your last statement. I think it would not matter. There would be a HUGE public outcry to know who the winner is. That is, if it gets up that high and there's a sole winner. If that's the case, it'd be best to just take one for the team, so to speak. You know, just to protect other anonymous lottery winners. That's what I'd do.

In Delaware and Maryland you can claim anonymously.  The New Hampshire lottery says in their FAQ that New Hampshire state law requires the winner's name, town and amount won be available for public information.

Are you saying "out" yourself if you win?

I think it'd be best to, if you're the sole winner of a billion dollar jackpot. If you try to stay anonymous, it may screw things up for you and everyone else. My speculation based on how the public and politicians would react.

If I win a billion dollars, I'm leaving America for a few months to a year. Safety first.

I can't recall when a multi-state $400 million plus jackpot winner claimed anonymously, but now we have all the problems when a Hot Lotto jackpot winner tried to claim anonymously. Because PB uses live ball drawings, it will very difficult claiming the drawing was rigged, but if for nothing more than credibility, MUSL is probably secretly hoping the jackpot is won by somebody in a state with no anonymity.

That is a good point about their credibility.  I am sure seeing some average looking person with a big smile peeking out over that ceremonial check with all those zeros will make a lot of people less apprehensive.

There has been enough grief among winners of amounts way under $1B. I don't think anyone who wins $1B could hide it unless in an anonymous state, and then maybe.

But letting all the world know - so to speak- you won $1B (of you could avoid it) would be a very bad move.

On TLC's TLCML there have been plenty of horror stories from winners - long lost relatives, former employees, etc....putting the bite on them. One guy in New Mexico was getting sacks of mail every day and one mooch asked him to sponsor him in the World Series of Poker.

I have found at least two instances where New Hampshire lottery winners claimed the winnings anonymously through a trust. One was last year in the Tri-State Megabucks and the other was in the PB back in 2004. And they also don't tax lottery winnings. I should of drove the extra half hour and played there, lol.

I live in a state where winners are anonymous and you have to give written consent to waive that anonymity. I see your point but I don't know that I would make any decision within the first couple of months, at least, to do that.  You can never put the genie back in the bottle and your whole life you would be trotted out any time there was a big lottery jackpot (and hopefully not as a cautionary tale).  I think I might see how it goes.  I would at least want a head start. 

And many millions of $2 investments turned into $0.00.

• You must be one of the 2nd place winners of the recent PB drawing that walked off with a cool $1million huh BDog? 

If a Billion is reached, how about a Trust claiming the win with multiple members in that trust that YOU invite in (trusted friends and family that are worthy).  Their names will probably be publicized but it'll dilute the idea that one person has all that money (unless you live in a state that allows Blind Trusts where nobody's name gets released to the public).  Members of the Trust sign a nondisclosure/confidentiality form and you decide how much to allocate to each member.  For example, give them $1 million each.  I can think of a dozen people I know that I would consider placing into this kind of Trust.

Reading the posts I just thought of something. After winning I would think you would take some time to get legal advise, set up a trust etc.  If there is a lot of interest in the winner and the fact the person didnt come forward soon enough would the Seller of the ticket pull the video?  That would expose the winner....

I have seen this before trying to find a winner "do you recognize....." .

Just wondering.

A South Carolina winner claimed $399+ million anonymously. Very little was made of it and it's rarely mentioned in any lottery discussion. Whoever it is is doing an amazing job of keeping radio silence on it. Sometimes you see exes or jealous friends/family members try to grab their 15 minutes. Haven't found a thing on this person. Whatever he's doing he's doing it right

This has me wondering who called the news on Gloria Mackenzie?

They didn't participate in the press conference, didn't answer any questions, but were followed in the parking lot.

Is there a write up somewhere were the Florida Lottery Comission apologizes for mishandling her claim?

Im in. Good luck folks.

I prob won't play... I have given up on PB after playing for 3 years due to the recent matrix change. I'm focused on my state game.  Good luck everyone.

It just jumped up to 450 Million Jackpot

Wait a minute ..New York State Lottery has it at 450 Million but the powerball.com is still at 400..What the Hell

So you want to preserve your health after winning the lottery by remaining anonymous.  Ok.  Your health and safety really means that much to you right?

Then why do you keep eating meat, fish, eggs, butter, and cows milk which will surely cause heart attacks, strokes, blood clots, cancer, and diabetes?

Think about it.  I win the lottery and give a press conference and stay vegan.  You don't win the lottery and keeping eating those animal products.  Who is morely likely to suffer pain?

Glad you see the light.  Eat beans, rice, potatoes, green salads, nuts, seeds, and water.  Thank you.

P.S.  I play every Mega Millions draw for a buck.  I don't play powerball anymore since they ignorantly went to $2 a play.  I make an exception when it gets this high.  I bought one today.  Lets see if we can steal one after all the regulars ran it up!  Cheers!

I don't know about Gloria, but I do know the Idaho Lottery often announces on their Facebook page that there's a 100K winner in the lobby right now.  I wonder if the Florida Lottery tweets or facebooks it too?

Florida and Idaho are not anonymous states.  I don't think they consider it mishandling anything to announce it to the world that the winner is there. 

When Brad Duke won here, they said he ducked out the back door and dashed to the car to try to avoid the media.  That was before social media was big, IIRC.  So how the local TV/newspaper media knew he was there, I don't know.  He went on a national news program the next day, so I guess he decided he couldn't beat 'em so he might as well participate.

LOL I dashed off to see for myself, and thought you were rickrolling us when the powerball.com was still at 400M.

Yeaaaaaaaa

California has also posted a $450M PB jackpot and other websites are doing the same.  Even USAMega has posted $450M now.

Hey durianrider, tell freelee I said hello!

Be careful about this sort of thing. If you do it wrong, you and your friends and family could get a nasty surprise from the IRS. To avoid having them interpret it as a bunch of very large taxable gifts, you'll probably need to form the trust and transfer the ticket to it before the drawing.

If I won and couldn't stay anonymous I'd not aid in painting a bullseye on myself. Claim, vanish, change your name and hope for the best.