Powerball
Why would anybody play the Lottery?
Or, using local vernacular, "Tha Lot-ree."
Odds of winning the Powerball jackpot - 1 in 292 million.
It's actually worse than that.
There are 292,201,338 possible number combinations.
The auto pick choice, that is 70 to 80 percent of the purchased numbers, is generated by the Powerball computer. The remaining 20 to 30 percent are chosen by people that go to the trouble to pick their own numbers.
How does it work?
Total of six numbers per two dollar play.
The first five numbers can be from 1 to 69.
The last number, AKA the Power Ball, is 1 to 26.
Good odds? No
Is someone going to win? Eventually.
The drawing is twice a week. Every Saturday night and Wednesday night. For the last 41 drawings, there has not been a jackpot winner.
The current jackpot?
1.7 Billion dollars.
Second biggest jackpot ever. There have only been six over 1 billion dollars in the 33 year history of the Powerball lottery.
An article I read today said, you have a better chance to get struck by lightning, or hit a hole in one in golf, or date a millionaire, than win the Lottery.
One chance out of 292 million.
I played with those numbers for a minute.
Paper Towel example...
A standard paper towel is about eleven inches x eleven inches long. 292 million paper towels would circle the earth at the equator twice, plus a little.
Your one ticket = one paper towel.
Think buying five tickets betters your chances? Now you have five paper towels.
Time example...
Say, "One Mississippi."
That should take about one second. Unless you are from the rural part of America, especially the deep south, then it could take much longer.
When we played backyard football, a five Mississippi rush was the standard. That gave the quarterback. about five seconds to unload the football, before you cross the line of scrimmage, and unload on him.
Anyway...If they read one name every second, 292 million names, and never took a break. It would take 9.3 years to read those 292 million names. Your name is one of those . Buy five tickets? now you have five seconds out of nine plus years, instead on only one Mississippi.
Last example...Deck of cards...
Get a deck of cards. Shuffle them up. Now pick a card in your mind. Seven of hearts? OK. Now try to pick that card from the deck.
The odds of getting the seven of hearts is 1 out of 52.
What if you pick five cards from the same deck trying to get your seven of hearts....
It seems like you could divide 52 by five, and reduce the odds to 1 out of ten. It doesn't work that way. Your odds are five out of fifty two. Not one out of ten.
Oh, and to get to 292 million cards, you would have to have five million six hundred thousand decks of cards. Now put a big "X" on your seven of hearts, to make it unique. Shuffle all those cards, and, Good Luck !
Like those odds?
What about the 1.7 billion dollar jackpot.
The winner gets half with the cash option. Then federal taxes get 37% of that. A person in Tennessee (no state income tax) should walk away with about five hundred million.
Who benefits from the lottery's revenue?
About half of lottery revenue is awarded back in prizes.
The other half pays the lottery overhead costs including salaries for the employees.
Whats left after that goes back to the participating states. A link to some of the benefactors...
https://blog.jackpocket.com/where-lottery-money-goes-in-every-state/
The odds of winning? Beyond dismal.
If no one wins, Wednesday's jackpot will scare 2 billion dollars.
Am I going to buy a two dollar ticket before Saturday night?
You bet cha.
Somebody's gonna win Tha Lot-ree.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
The math for the examples above....
1) Paper Towel example
292,000,000 x 11 inches = 3,212,000,000 inches.
divided by 12 = 267,666,666 feet long
divided by 5280, feet in a mile = 50,636 miles
divided by 24,901, distance around the earth at the equator
= 2.03 times around the equator
2) Time example
292,000,000 divided by 60 = 4,866,666 minutes
divided by 60, minutes in an hour = 81,111 hours
divided by 24, hours per day = 3,379 days
divided by 365, days is a year = 9.3 years
3) Cards example
52 cards in a complete deck
292,000,000 divided by 52 = 5,615,384 decks of cards