Why play the Powerball Lottery??
Or, using local vernacular, "Tha Lot-tree."
Odds - 1 in 292 million.
It's actually worse than that.
There are 292,201,338 possible number combinations.
https://www.wcvb.com/article/powerball-gurantee-jackpot-win-oct-9-2023/45487167
The auto pick, that is 70 to 80 percent of tickets, 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.
Six numbers per play.
Numbers one through five are 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.
This is the second biggest jackpot ever. There have been six over 1 billion dollars in the 33 year history of Powerball.
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 to show how bad those adds are.
Paper Towel example...
A paper towel is about eleven inches wide 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.
Buy five tickets to increase 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.
Growing up, we played backyard football. A five Mississippi rush was standard. The quarterback had about five seconds to unload the football, and the receivers five seconds to go downfield. At five Mississippi, the defense crossed the line of scrimmage, and tried to unload on the quarterback. If your team had Ronnie McNeese or Mike Morrow, they could run, in five seconds farther than you could throw it.
Anyway...If they read one name every second, (one Mississippi) 292 million names, with no breaks, it would take 9.3 years to read all those names. Your ticket is one of those. One Mississippi. Buy five tickets? Now you have five Mississippi.
Last example...Deck of cards...
Pick a card... Seven of hearts? OK. Now shuffle and pick that card from the deck.
The odds of getting your card, 1 out of 52.
What if you pick five cards from the same deck trying to get your seven of hearts....
It seems you could divide 52 by five, changing your odds to 1 out of ten. No. Your odds are five out of fifty two. Not one out of ten.
To get to 292 million, you will need five million six hundred thousand decks of cards.
That many decks of cards would require 83 semi trucks.
If I'm half wrong, that's still 40 truck loads.
Now put a "X" on your seven of hearts, to make it unique.
Good Luck !
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?
Half the revenue is awarded back in prizes.
The other half pays the lottery overhead costs including salaries for the employees.
Whats left goes back to participating states. A link to a long list of benefactors, by state...
https://blog.jackpocket.com/where-lottery-money-goes-in-every-state/
The odds of winning? Beyond dismal.
If no one wins Saturday night, Wednesday's jackpot will scare 2 billion dollars, and could be the biggest ever.
Am I going to buy a two dollar ticket before Saturday night?
You bet cha.
Somebody's gonna win Tha Lot-tree.
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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 deck
292,000,000 divided by 52 = 5,615,384 decks of cards
There are 24 decks of cards per case.
120 cases per pallet. (estimate)
24 pallets per truck
+/- 80 semi truck loads.
If I'm half wrong, and they double stack them, it's still about 40 truck loads.
