Mega Millions and Powerball RacePrev TopicNext Topic

• Tucker Black

  

  Colorado
  United States
  Member #173,294
  February 25, 2016
  1,134 Posts
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  Aug 18, 2025, 12:59 am

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  Assuming all the numbers are different, on three lines, the chances of that happening is 25%.
• JustMaybe

  

  us
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  January 2, 2023
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  Aug 18, 2025, 3:42 pm

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  In response to winoneday

  Quote: Originally posted by winoneday on Aug 17, 2025

  Our pool finally broke the losing streak and won $8 in yesterday's Powerball draw.

  Hurray!! 🎉 Happy for the pool.

  I matched PB #23 and won $4.

  I have a friend that bought 38 lines for the Saturday draw, they won $4.

  They had done a mix of RNG, Own Numbers and QPs

  This thing is pure luck.

  Hoping to win big tonight 😜

  I believe winning the lottery jackpot is a 💯 % factor of luck.

  May Fortuna, goddess of chance or lot vindicate me.
• Justing618

  

  Baltimore
  United States
  Member #221,592
  March 26, 2022
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  Aug 18, 2025, 6:50 pm

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  Good luck to everyone playing tonight! It's a life changing amount of money if yah win ! 🙂🙃😉😜🤑🥸😎
• IAmABadOne

  

  Cambridge, Ohio
  United States
  Member #232,684
  June 8, 2023
  98 Posts
  Online
  Aug 19, 2025, 1:42 am

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  In response to winoneday

  Quote: Originally posted by winoneday on Aug 17, 2025

  I like your idea of winning something if none of the numbers match on a multi-line ticket.

  Problem is, they would lose money. It happens way too often.

  As Snidely Whiplash would say: "Curses, foiled again!"

  On 3 tickets (2 tickets shared 1 number) I hit only 1 number. That makes it 1 for 17 on this try. All numbers on the 3 tickets were just randomly thrown together by me as I was getting close to the cut off time to purchase them. It was close to a quick pick, except I picked the stinking numbers... But, I did get 15 points in my account.

  I am beginning to wonder if I should stop buying and just wait  and keep saving for the "Big One" and hope that the no win streak ends there. Or is someone going to sneak in and grab the jackpot before it becomes truly humongous when I would go all in for it? You wouldn't do that to me would you...?

  If there were 1 free ticket for no hits on a 5 play ticket, would it be a loss for the lottery? And, I mean just a free ticket, not 2 dollars paid out and paid back in for the ticket. Would no ticket paid out and no sale of a ticket be a wash?

  Tucker, feel free to jump in on this one - I can't make up my mind on it. 

  Best wishes to all, and on to Wednesday!

  I Am A Bad One, But I am not bad all of the time...
• winoneday

  

  Canada
  Member #154,371
  April 14, 2014
  694 Posts
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  Aug 20, 2025, 10:36 am

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  The Mega Millions jackpot increased by $18 million to $234 million after 15 rolls. In the previous run, the Mega Millions jackpot reached $264 million after 15 rolls. The 15 roll record jackpot for Mega Millions is $421 million and the Powerball record is $587.5 million.
• Justing618

  

  Baltimore
  United States
  Member #221,592
  March 26, 2022
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  Aug 20, 2025, 6:27 pm

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  Everyone excited for tonight for your chance to win a life changing amount of denero? If you got some skin in the game for tonight. Good luck!
• Tucker Black

  

  Colorado
  United States
  Member #173,294
  February 25, 2016
  1,134 Posts
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  Aug 21, 2025, 1:13 am

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  In response to IAmABadOne

  Quote: Originally posted by IAmABadOne on Aug 19, 2025

  As Snidely Whiplash would say: "Curses, foiled again!"

  On 3 tickets (2 tickets shared 1 number) I hit only 1 number. That makes it 1 for 17 on this try. All numbers on the 3 tickets were just randomly thrown together by me as I was getting close to the cut off time to purchase them. It was close to a quick pick, except I picked the stinking numbers... But, I did get 15 points in my account.

  I am beginning to wonder if I should stop buying and just wait  and keep saving for the "Big One" and hope that the no win streak ends there. Or is someone going to sneak in and grab the jackpot before it becomes truly humongous when I would go all in for it? You wouldn't do that to me would you...?

  If there were 1 free ticket for no hits on a 5 play ticket, would it be a loss for the lottery? And, I mean just a free ticket, not 2 dollars paid out and paid back in for the ticket. Would no ticket paid out and no sale of a ticket be a wash?

  Tucker, feel free to jump in on this one - I can't make up my mind on it. 

  Best wishes to all, and on to Wednesday!

  If a free ticket does not contribute to the jackpot, it is worth 35 cents. This is the expected value of winning $4, $7, $100, $50,000, $1 million, or $9 million. $9 million is the cash value (with today's interest rates) of the starting jackpot of "20 million". Of course, the actual value of a ticket is more than 35 cents if the jackpot is more than $20 million annuity, but anything extra is player money. The cost to Powerball would be just the 35 cents.

  With five lines and all 25+5 numbers being different, the probability of not matching any of them is 7.8%. Multiply that by 35 cents, divide by the $10 cost to buy five lines, and the cost of giving players a free ticket is 0.27% of Powerball's revenue on a five line ticket. I like the idea. They could afford it, and some of that cost (possibly all of it, or even more) will be made up by people buying five lines instead of fewer. 

  A problem with this is that if your ticket contains duplicates, then the probability of not matching anything goes up. One duplicate in the white balls increases that to 8.78%.

  If you bought a five line ticket with all the numbers being the same (because you want to get 5/6th of the jackpot in case one other person wins), your chances of a total miss are 60%.

  If you bought a five line ticket with all the white ball numbers being the same with different Powerball numbers, your chances of a total miss are 50%.

  So, they would probably have to require the numbers to all be different. This would also require changing the programming for buying 5 QPs, because currently it just picks 5+1 five different times, and you can get duplicates by chance.
• KY Floyd

  

  NY
  United States
  Member #23,834
  October 16, 2005
  5,128 Posts
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  Aug 21, 2025, 2:19 am

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  "I am beginning to wonder if I should stop buying and just wait  and keep saving for the "Big One" and hope that the no win streak ends there. Or is someone going to sneak in and grab the jackpot before it becomes truly humongous when I would go all in for it?" 

  If you knew how big it would get before somebody else won the best strategy would be to wait and spend it all on the drawing before that one. Of course you can't know when it will be hit, but you can know what's probable. The table at https://www.texaslottery.com/export/sites/lottery/Documents/jackpotestimates/pb20250820.pdf doesn't list jackpot estimates after the current drawing, but it does seem to have a proxy for sales estimates in the form of combination coverage up until September 15th. That lets us make a close approximation of the jackpot if the current sales estimates  are correct and interest rates don't change. Here's what that says about what might happen going forward. Since we never know when somebody will turn probability into reality, if I was going to hold off right now I'd probably wait out the next 3 or 4 drawings and then start buying twice as many tickets for each drawing if the jackpot  hasn't been won. FWIW, right now it's slightly more likely that we'll see rolls through 9/1 than a hit, resulting in an advertised jackpot of just over $1 billion. At current interest rates thats a cash value of about $473 million. Relative to all but one of the previous billion+ jackpots that cash value is a bit small, so right now a jackpot of "$1 billion!" isn't as big as people might think.

  Date	Chance of roll	Chance still rolling	Annuity
  08/23/25	88.50%	88.50%	$700
  08/25/25	90.50%	80.09%	$747
  08/27/25	89.40%	71.60%	$800
  08/30/25	86.30%	61.79%	$868
  09/01/25	81.90%	50.61%	$957
  09/03/25	82.60%	41.80%	$1,043
  09/06/25	79.00%	33.02%	$1,148
  09/08/25	74.10%	24.47%	$1,276
  09/10/25	75.10%	18.38%	$1,399
  09/13/25	65.10%	11.96%	$1,572
  09/15/25	63.80%	7.63%	$1,752
• IAmABadOne

  

  Cambridge, Ohio
  United States
  Member #232,684
  June 8, 2023
  98 Posts
  Online
  Aug 21, 2025, 4:53 am

  ▲▼
  In response to KY Floyd

  Quote: Originally posted by KY Floyd on Aug 21, 2025

  "I am beginning to wonder if I should stop buying and just wait  and keep saving for the "Big One" and hope that the no win streak ends there. Or is someone going to sneak in and grab the jackpot before it becomes truly humongous when I would go all in for it?" 

  If you knew how big it would get before somebody else won the best strategy would be to wait and spend it all on the drawing before that one. Of course you can't know when it will be hit, but you can know what's probable. The table at https://www.texaslottery.com/export/sites/lottery/Documents/jackpotestimates/pb20250820.pdf doesn't list jackpot estimates after the current drawing, but it does seem to have a proxy for sales estimates in the form of combination coverage up until September 15th. That lets us make a close approximation of the jackpot if the current sales estimates  are correct and interest rates don't change. Here's what that says about what might happen going forward. Since we never know when somebody will turn probability into reality, if I was going to hold off right now I'd probably wait out the next 3 or 4 drawings and then start buying twice as many tickets for each drawing if the jackpot  hasn't been won. FWIW, right now it's slightly more likely that we'll see rolls through 9/1 than a hit, resulting in an advertised jackpot of just over $1 billion. At current interest rates thats a cash value of about $473 million. Relative to all but one of the previous billion+ jackpots that cash value is a bit small, so right now a jackpot of "$1 billion!" isn't as big as people might think.

  Date	Chance of roll	Chance still rolling	Annuity
  08/23/25	88.50%	88.50%	$700
  08/25/25	90.50%	80.09%	$747
  08/27/25	89.40%	71.60%	$800
  08/30/25	86.30%	61.79%	$868
  09/01/25	81.90%	50.61%	$957
  09/03/25	82.60%	41.80%	$1,043
  09/06/25	79.00%	33.02%	$1,148
  09/08/25	74.10%	24.47%	$1,276
  09/10/25	75.10%	18.38%	$1,399
  09/13/25	65.10%	11.96%	$1,572
  09/15/25	63.80%	7.63%	$1,752

  Thanks for the info. I did not have a clue where to get this. It does give me an idea of when to go "All In". I was just watching the cash value numbers jump for my plan (Man plans and who laughs?) and was thinking about 500-750 Mil cash value and then go for it. But, as we know, a win can happen any old time that would ruin my plan for now (again, I refer to the laughing!). 

  My recent grumbles were just referring to a *long* dry spell before I stopped playing last March and just saved the cost of the tickets I would have normally played. I am still saving but after the PB went into the 200 Mil bracket I decided to play a little bit just to be in the game while still saving. I save the cost of 1 ticket for every 100 Mil cash value for both PB and MM (the MM money will go to my big PB effort) and play the PB 100 Mil value, now 4 tickets per draw starting with this last rollover pushing the cash value into the 4th Mil bracket.

  So far the no hit streak and grumbles continue. This draw was 3 tickets and  again I had only 1 number hit.  But, my wife looked at the tickets I bought and was happy to point out exactly why this was happening... I have just been playing the wrong stinking numbers!    Grrrrrrrr...

  I think I will Just continue playing the PB Mil brackets and see if the 500-750 Mil target arrives in September, earlier, or later. 

  Best wishes!

  I Am A Bad One, But I am not bad all of the time...
• winoneday

  

  Canada
  Member #154,371
  April 14, 2014
  694 Posts
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  Aug 21, 2025, 11:41 am

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  There is a lot of discussion on how the Mega Millions jackpot is growing so slowly. But the reality is, both the Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots are growing slowly. Currently, the Mega Millions jackpot is growing more slowly than the Powerball jackpot simply because the Powerball jackpot is much larger - about three times as large. The current Powerball jackpot at $700 million was reached after 35 rolls. The 35 roll record for Powerball is a whopping $1.76 billion - over twice as large as the current jackpot.
• winoneday

  

  Canada
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  April 14, 2014
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  Aug 23, 2025, 3:56 pm

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  The Mega Millions jackpot increased by $19 million to $253 million after 16 rolls. In the previous run, the Mega Millions jackpot reached $280 million after 16 rolls. The rate at which the Mega Millions jackpot is increasing is slowly getting larger. But it will not take a big jump until the Powerball jackpot is won. The Powerball jackpot is nearly three times larger at $700 million.
• JustMaybe

  

  us
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  January 2, 2023
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  Aug 23, 2025, 8:21 pm

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  In response to winoneday

  Quote: Originally posted by winoneday on Aug 23, 2025

  The Mega Millions jackpot increased by $19 million to $253 million after 16 rolls. In the previous run, the Mega Millions jackpot reached $280 million after 16 rolls. The rate at which the Mega Millions jackpot is increasing is slowly getting larger. But it will not take a big jump until the Powerball jackpot is won. The Powerball jackpot is nearly three times larger at $700 million.

  I am certain your pool is ready for tonight 😁 

  Fingers crossed 🤞 all over the land 🙏

  I believe winning the lottery jackpot is a 💯 % factor of luck.

  May Fortuna, goddess of chance or lot vindicate me.
• winoneday

  

  Canada
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  April 14, 2014
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  Aug 23, 2025, 9:47 pm

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  In response to JustMaybe

  Quote: Originally posted by JustMaybe on Aug 23, 2025

  I am certain your pool is ready for tonight 😁 

  Fingers crossed 🤞 all over the land 🙏

  Thanks. I hope so.

  Good luck.
• winoneday

  

  Canada
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  April 14, 2014
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  Aug 24, 2025, 9:28 am

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  The Powerball jackpot is clearly winning this round. The jackpot is $750 million for the Monday, August 25 draw. It is the largest Powerball jackpot since April 2024.
• JustMaybe

  

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  Aug 24, 2025, 6:22 pm

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  In response to winoneday

  Quote: Originally posted by winoneday on Aug 24, 2025

  The Powerball jackpot is clearly winning this round. The jackpot is $750 million for the Monday, August 25 draw. It is the largest Powerball jackpot since April 2024.

  That's going to be a very decent win.

  I will give it a shot with one or two tickets.

  I can do so much with 7M every year and growing.

  I don't need the lump sum at once.

  Good luck to all.

  I believe winning the lottery jackpot is a 💯 % factor of luck.

  May Fortuna, goddess of chance or lot vindicate me.