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Quote: Originally posted by Coin Toss on Dec 1, 2025
Just curios, I kow $2 PB is much mmiore common but if I hit 5 + 0 and won $1M instead of 2M I'd be upset with myself.
I don't because I would have to spend an average of $12 million to win the extra $1 million. That's not a good deal. I'm perfectly happy winning only $1 million.
Most of the power play winnings go to the bottom two prizes. A 1 in 26 chance to win about eight dollars or so, big deal.
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Quote: Originally posted by Coin Toss on Dec 1, 2025
Just curios, I kow $2 PB is much mmiore common but if I hit 5 + 0 and won $1M instead of 2M I'd be upset with myself.
I'd be plenty PO'd at myself too. For just one lousy dollar bill more, I could have had two million. I don't wanna be that guy.
Then there's this too - When I play PB, I play three identical lines of five numbers. Each line on my ticket will have a different PB (Red Ball) number. The pay out would be six million minus the taxes if I hit only all five white ball numbers. If I happened to have matched the PB too, I'd win the jackpot with the other two lines kicking in an additional 4 million. Good thing I can claim anonymously for six months because I live in Florida. If it wasn't for that, my face and name would be all over the TV and in every newspaper in the country if something crazy like that happened.
Sure, my ticket costs me 9 bucks (which I can easily afford) but I don't play PB all that much.
People talk about "value" when buying lottery tickets. I couldn't care less about value. It's the LOTTERY with it's 292 million to 1 odds stacked against you. And those odds never change regardless of how many tickets you buy. If you're not playing for fun/entertainment, and expecting to toss your losing ticket in a garbage can after the drawing, then I don't what to tell you.
Agreed that PowerPlay winnings go mostly to the two bottom tier prizes. But with the way I play, I once turned an 8 buck prize into about $130. I went super nuts when I bought that particular ticket. I bought five identical lines of six numbers with The PP option added. That particular ticket cost me 15 bucks for 5 identical lines (including The Red Ball). But I didn't know what else to do with that 15 bucks in my wallet so I bought a PB ticket with it. G5
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Quote: Originally posted by Tucker Black on Dec 2, 2025
I don't because I would have to spend an average of $12 million to win the extra $1 million. That's not a good deal. I'm perfectly happy winning only $1 million.
Most of the power play winnings go to the bottom two prizes. A 1 in 26 chance to win about eight dollars or so, big deal.
You don't have an extra $12 million that you could spend on lottery tickets, do you?
I didn't think so. G5
Play Smart! That's IF there is such a thing as playing smartly!!
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Quote: Originally posted by GiveFive on Dec 2, 2025
I'd be plenty PO'd at myself too. For just one lousy dollar bill more, I could have had two million. I don't wanna be that guy.
Then there's this too - When I play PB, I play three identical lines of five numbers. Each line on my ticket will have a different PB (Red Ball) number. The pay out would be six million minus the taxes if I hit only all five white ball numbers. If I happened to have matched the PB too, I'd win the jackpot with the other two lines kicking in an additional 4 million. Good thing I can claim anonymously for six months because I live in Florida. If it wasn't for that, my face and name would be all over the TV and in every newspaper in the country if something crazy like that happened.
Sure, my ticket costs me 9 bucks (which I can easily afford) but I don't play PB all that much.
People talk about "value" when buying lottery tickets. I couldn't care less about value. It's the LOTTERY with it's 292 million to 1 odds stacked against you. And those odds never change regardless of how many tickets you buy. If you're not playing for fun/entertainment, and expecting to toss your losing ticket in a garbage can after the drawing, then I don't what to tell you.
Agreed that PowerPlay winnings go mostly to the two bottom tier prizes. But with the way I play, I once turned an 8 buck prize into about $130. I went super nuts when I bought that particular ticket. I bought five identical lines of six numbers with The PP option added. That particular ticket cost me 15 bucks for 5 identical lines (including The Red Ball). But I didn't know what else to do with that 15 bucks in my wallet so I bought a PB ticket with it. G5
By the way...
When I took that $15 ticket that I won about $130 and cashed it in, the clerk took a long hard look at the ticket after he noticed that he had to pay me 130 bucks cash.
So before he said anything, I said to him - "Yeah. That's a crazy ticket. It cost me 15 bucks for what amounts to be one line."
He looked at me and said "You aint so crazy. But if you won real big with it, your face would be on TV and in newspapers in every state in the country." That's the downside of playing PB like I do. G5
Play Smart! That's IF there is such a thing as playing smartly!!
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Quote: Originally posted by Coin Toss on Dec 1, 2025
Just curios, I kow $2 PB is much mmiore common but if I hit 5 + 0 and won $1M instead of 2M I'd be upset with myself.
I don't play the jackpot games very often but when I do, I get the power play every time, and I did the same with the mega plier when it was an option.
If I hit 5+0 without the PP I would be like, You mean I could have won 2 million dollars instead of 1 million but I didn't because I didn't want to spend the extra buck? What was I thinking?
List Pick 3 singles by low sums, high sums. Separate each sum row by consecutive pair and non consecutive pair combos. These 3 pair groups.14 17 47, 25 28 58,36 39 69 are in 63 combos. 54 combos do not have them. Which sums do the 3 pair groups appear and not appear? Look at root sum groups 147, 258, 369. Play accordingly.
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Quote: Originally posted by grwurston on Dec 2, 2025
I don't play the jackpot games very often but when I do, I get the power play every time, and I did the same with the mega plier when it was an option.
If I hit 5+0 without the PP I would be like, You mean I could have won 2 million dollars instead of 1 million but I didn't because I didn't want to spend the extra buck? What was I thinking?
I know me, and I'd feel exactly as you would even though I play for entertainment. There are Hardrock casinos located near me, but I've never been. The only other form of gambling I do besides playing the lottery is in The Stock Market, which I've done for the last 45 years. Over that 45 year time period I've made more money than I ever invested, but there were a few times (like in 2000 and 2008) when I didn't do so well.
For me personally, in addition to the above, there's this - I have a fixed amount of money budgeted each month for lottery tickets. I keep track of how much I spend on tickets. (I track my winnings too, but there aren't nearly as many entry's on my spreadsheet for that as there are entries that show how much money I lost.)
I don't usually spend as much money buying tickets as I budgeted for. Because of that, I don't mind spending 3 bucks per line for PB. I don't play PB all that often either. I typically end up spending most of the amount of money I have budgeted on Florida Fantasy5 tickets.
I budget 350 bucks a month for lottery tickets because I can afford it, but I know that I probably wont come anywhere close to spending that much. So if it's close to the end of the month, and I have money left to spend on tickets, (which I usually do) I'll buy $15 of PB or if I'm feeling real lucky I'll buy an additional 5 lines with the PB added.
As far as saving what I don't use each month goes, sometimes I do that, other times I'll let my wife spend it on whatever she wants to. (She'll usually spend it on our gandson ) G5
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Quote: Originally posted by KY Floyd on Dec 2, 2025
Why not save the $1 and be pissed that you didn't play the right power ball?
There's one million reasons not to. I just do QP's
List Pick 3 singles by low sums, high sums. Separate each sum row by consecutive pair and non consecutive pair combos. These 3 pair groups.14 17 47, 25 28 58,36 39 69 are in 63 combos. 54 combos do not have them. Which sums do the 3 pair groups appear and not appear? Look at root sum groups 147, 258, 369. Play accordingly.
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"Because saving that dollar might mean you don't win another million. "
So why don't you spend an extra $2 and buy a second ticket? The chances of hitting 5+0 are 1 in 12 million, but if you do the chances of hitting 5+1 with that second ticket is 1 in 25.
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Yesterday I saw something at a local supermarket's customer service counter that caught my eye.
It was a PowerBall ticket lying underneath a big sheet of clear plastic that was covering some scratch off tickets. Someone had placed a small piece of paper beside the ticket with handwritten words that said "Please buy me" along with an arrow pointing at the ticket.
The total cost of the ticket was $390. I know it was an advance play ticket because it had a date range of a few days ago out to a drawing date in February of 2026. I don't recall how many lines were on the ticket. It said "NO" to the PowerPlay and Double Play options. For a couple of seconds I actually considered buying the ticket, but thought better of doing it because I thought it might have been canceled and it was a joke of some kind. Nor did I inquire about it to the clerk that was waiting on me. I don't know if it was a QP or player picked numbers.
It was obviously a ticket that was generated in error, and the customer refused it. I wondered if the clerk that had made the error had gone ahead and canceled it. Players that regularly play the lottery often say "Go ahead and buy the ticket that was created by mistake" but in this particular case that's a horse of a whole different color.
I realize the numbers on the ticket would have a lot of influence as to whether or not some players would buy it, and of course a player has be able to afford it. But if it really is still active, for sale, and you can afford it, would you buy it? G5
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I'm sure that lots of players will spend $390 on PB tickets, but I doubt that many would spend it all at once. There are 13 weeks from 12/1 to the end of February, and 13 divides conveniently into 390 to play $30 per week. At the $2 cost that's 5 tickets for each of the 3 drawings, and I suspect that few players want to but 5 tickets for every drawing. Interestingly, the FL limit for advance play on PB is 52 drawings. That seems like a sensible number for a game with one drawing per week or two drawings per week, but with 3 drawings per week it's 17 weeks plus one more drawing. I suppose it doesn't really matter, but it strikes me as an odd limit when there are 3 drawings per week.
"It was obviously a ticket that was generated in error, and the customer refused it. "
Maybe. I suppose a clerk entering things manually could fat finger the number of drawings or the number of plays per drawing, but 5 plays per drawing or 13 weeks both seem like deliberate choices to me. Maybe a customer asked for it without doing the mat to see how much they wee spending. Maybe a customer asked for it without doing the math and realizing how much they were spending. Maybe they realized and then found out they didn't have as much cash as they thought they did. I've got no idea what policies stores or lotteries in general have about such things, but a couple for times when buying advance plays I've been asked to confirm that I really mean to spend that much.
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Quote: Originally posted by KY Floyd on Dec 6, 2025
I'm sure that lots of players will spend $390 on PB tickets, but I doubt that many would spend it all at once. There are 13 weeks from 12/1 to the end of February, and 13 divides conveniently into 390 to play $30 per week. At the $2 cost that's 5 tickets for each of the 3 drawings, and I suspect that few players want to but 5 tickets for every drawing. Interestingly, the FL limit for advance play on PB is 52 drawings. That seems like a sensible number for a game with one drawing per week or two drawings per week, but with 3 drawings per week it's 17 weeks plus one more drawing. I suppose it doesn't really matter, but it strikes me as an odd limit when there are 3 drawings per week.
"It was obviously a ticket that was generated in error, and the customer refused it. "
Maybe. I suppose a clerk entering things manually could fat finger the number of drawings or the number of plays per drawing, but 5 plays per drawing or 13 weeks both seem like deliberate choices to me. Maybe a customer asked for it without doing the mat to see how much they wee spending. Maybe a customer asked for it without doing the math and realizing how much they were spending. Maybe they realized and then found out they didn't have as much cash as they thought they did. I've got no idea what policies stores or lotteries in general have about such things, but a couple for times when buying advance plays I've been asked to confirm that I really mean to spend that much.
Interestingly, the FL limit for advance play on PB is 52 drawings
No it's not. I'm looking at a current Florida PB bet/play slip and the highest number in the advance drawings check boxes is 39. It looks like this ==> 2 3 4 5 6 8 10 15 20 25 30 35 39. I suppose it's possible for a player to tell the clerk they want to play 13 advance draws, and the clerk could possibly manually enter that amount of drawings in the terminal. Anyway I don't care about the circumstances surrounding how that $390 ticket was generated, I just thought it was interesting that the ticket was there and was "for sale". (If it really was for sale and not a joke of some kind)
I was half tempted to buy it. There's an ATM in the store, and for a couple of seconds I did consider withdrawing $400 from that ATM to buy the ticket. What stopped me from going over to the ATM and withdrawing the cash was this - what if I withdrew it, walked back to the customer service counter, and the clerk said something like "Oh! We canceled that ticket. It isn't really for sale."
This whole thing of me buying 5 lines of PB with the PowerPlay added, and The Florida Lottery allowing players to claim anonymously for six months has made me rethink what I do when buying a ticket. I sporadically bought one ticket with five lines on it when I lived in New York, and I still do it occasionally now that I live in Florida. In New York there was no claiming anonymously, and I didn't live close to any other county's. In Florida, it just so happens that I live in close proximity to two other county's. Because it would be newsworthy if I won, I'm pretty sure the media would want the story. So I've thought about throwing The Florida Lottery (not to mention the media) a big fat curve ball by buying five separate one line tickets at different stores located in each of the three county's. Then I'd claim each ticket anonymously on three or four different dates. I'm out and about almost every day and it isn't uncommon for me to cross all three county boundary lines. It might take me about a half hour to buy them.
As far as claiming anonymously for six month goes, I'm not exactly sure when that law was enacted, but I think it was in May of 2023. At that time, I read an article about it. The article said The Lottery was trying balance a players need for privacy with The Lottery's need for publicity, hence the six months window. The article went on to say the law basically gives a big winner a six months head start to do what they feel they need to do.
And then there's the question regarding a PB second place prize not being a jackpot win. The Lottery includes only jackpot winners information on the Jackpot Winners report they put out on their website. So that leaves just photos on the recent winners page. IMHO if they waited the required six months to put my picture out there, it strikes me that they would be going to lengths that they don't have to go to, so why bother to do it? Especially if I claimed five separate 2 million dollar winning tickets on three or four different dates. As interesting or newsworthy it might be, I just don't think they'd bother with it.
On a different note, I just took a look at the Winners and Jackpot information report for Florida Lotto. The report shows just ONE Lotto jackpot winner out of 17 players that have won a jackpot since May of 2023 that was listed as "Exempt per F.S. 1024.51". That particular jackpot was won on 9/24/2025. That says to me either people don't know they can claim anonymously, and the lottery doesn't advise them that they can do it, or they don't care about claiming anonymously. The report goes back to June of 2012, but there was no claiming anonymously at that time. I'm wondering if after six months has elapsed does the lottery update the field in the report that states "Exempt per F.S. 1024.51" with a winners name that previously claimed anonymously using statute 1024.51?
I dunno why I'm thinking about all of this stuff. Very unlikely that lightening like I'd love to have strike me will actually happen. G5
Play Smart! That's IF there is such a thing as playing smartly!!
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Quote: Originally posted by GiveFive on Dec 7, 2025
Interestingly, the FL limit for advance play on PB is 52 drawings
No it's not. I'm looking at a current Florida PB bet/play slip and the highest number in the advance drawings check boxes is 39. It looks like this ==> 2 3 4 5 6 8 10 15 20 25 30 35 39. I suppose it's possible for a player to tell the clerk they want to play 13 advance draws, and the clerk could possibly manually enter that amount of drawings in the terminal. Anyway I don't care about the circumstances surrounding how that $390 ticket was generated, I just thought it was interesting that the ticket was there and was "for sale". (If it really was for sale and not a joke of some kind)
I was half tempted to buy it. There's an ATM in the store, and for a couple of seconds I did consider withdrawing $400 from that ATM to buy the ticket. What stopped me from going over to the ATM and withdrawing the cash was this - what if I withdrew it, walked back to the customer service counter, and the clerk said something like "Oh! We canceled that ticket. It isn't really for sale."
This whole thing of me buying 5 lines of PB with the PowerPlay added, and The Florida Lottery allowing players to claim anonymously for six months has made me rethink what I do when buying a ticket. I sporadically bought one ticket with five lines on it when I lived in New York, and I still do it occasionally now that I live in Florida. In New York there was no claiming anonymously, and I didn't live close to any other county's. In Florida, it just so happens that I live in close proximity to two other county's. Because it would be newsworthy if I won, I'm pretty sure the media would want the story. So I've thought about throwing The Florida Lottery (not to mention the media) a big fat curve ball by buying five separate one line tickets at different stores located in each of the three county's. Then I'd claim each ticket anonymously on three or four different dates. I'm out and about almost every day and it isn't uncommon for me to cross all three county boundary lines. It might take me about a half hour to buy them.
As far as claiming anonymously for six month goes, I'm not exactly sure when that law was enacted, but I think it was in May of 2023. At that time, I read an article about it. The article said The Lottery was trying balance a players need for privacy with The Lottery's need for publicity, hence the six months window. The article went on to say the law basically gives a big winner a six months head start to do what they feel they need to do.
And then there's the question regarding a PB second place prize not being a jackpot win. The Lottery includes only jackpot winners information on the Jackpot Winners report they put out on their website. So that leaves just photos on the recent winners page. IMHO if they waited the required six months to put my picture out there, it strikes me that they would be going to lengths that they don't have to go to, so why bother to do it? Especially if I claimed five separate 2 million dollar winning tickets on three or four different dates. As interesting or newsworthy it might be, I just don't think they'd bother with it.
On a different note, I just took a look at the Winners and Jackpot information report for Florida Lotto. The report shows just ONE Lotto jackpot winner out of 17 players that have won a jackpot since May of 2023 that was listed as "Exempt per F.S. 1024.51". That particular jackpot was won on 9/24/2025. That says to me either people don't know they can claim anonymously, and the lottery doesn't advise them that they can do it, or they don't care about claiming anonymously. The report goes back to June of 2012, but there was no claiming anonymously at that time. I'm wondering if after six months has elapsed does the lottery update the field in the report that states "Exempt per F.S. 1024.51" with a winners name that previously claimed anonymously using statute 1024.51?
I dunno why I'm thinking about all of this stuff. Very unlikely that lightening like I'd love to have strike me will actually happen. G5
As hard as I might try to disguise the fact that just one player won five times (10 million dollars) by buying five separate one line tickets at five different stores located in three different county's, I have to believe The Fla Lottery would suspect something was "up" if it actually happened.
First of all, FIVE two million dollar winning tickets sold in Florida in a single PB drawing??? That doesn't happen much if it's ever even happened at all in the past, which I doubt. There was one winner of one million dollars sold in Florida in last night's PB drawing, but I've noticed in the past that when that happens, the Fla Lottery website does not even report which county in Florida the ticket was sold in. I have seen reports of second place prizes in the local media stating what county the ticket was sold in, but I guess they called asked The Fla Lottery and asked for that info.
The Lottery would see three different county's but they'd also probably notice the towns where the tickets were sold are in close proximity to each other. But still, they couldn't be sure what was actually going on. When I claimed one ticket for the first time, they'd still be not sure exactly what had happened. But after that, depending on when I started claiming the others they'd quickly figure out what was going on.
Sure would be fun/nice to be the guy watching the expression on somebody's face that works for The Fla Lottery when the situation was unraveled and became clear to them!! Oh well. I guy can dream..... G5
Play Smart! That's IF there is such a thing as playing smartly!!
Zeta Reticuli Star System
100Same digits. Different games.United States
