Powerball

[Coronita]

Oh. And I didn’t kniw the powerball was a $2 ticket. I assumed it was $1. But the good news is even if you bought every single number at $2/you would still come out ahead if you are the only winner with the current jackpot

…well I guess that depends if you can write off the cost of your lottery tickets as a business and or investment expense and use it to offset your gain from winning.otherwise, if you can’t write it off, you will probably not come out ahead after taxes.

[moneymaker]

Considering the cash payout is 428M you will not come out ahead even if no taxes, hence the house always wins. Just bought 5 tickets for the Ronald McDonald house raffle. Guess I’m just in a gambling mood. Haven’t won anything valued over $600 in the past 43 years so I guess I’m due.

[The-Shoveler]

As Han Solo would say,

Never tell me the odds!

[XBoxBoy]

Here’s something I wouldn’t have expected. California is one of the states with the lowest rate of participation in Powerball.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-biggest-powerball-players-live-in-this-little-state-2016-01-08

California sells only 1.25 tickets per capita which is pretty far done on the list. Wonder why that is? Maybe MegaMillions is more popular here? Could it be that Californians just don’t think they will win? I don’t think of Californian’s as particluarly pessimistic, but maybe I’m wrong. Is there some reason that west coast states sell less? (California, Oregan and Washington are all well down the list)

[utcsox]

Jackpot at $900 Million now. I think we are going to see the first $1 billion in history tonight.

[moneymaker]

Ok so $558M lump sum,how much after taxes?

[utcsox]

[quote=moneymaker]Ok so $558M lump sum,how much after taxes?[/quote]

That will depends on which city and state you are located it.

http://time.com/money/4172196/powerball-math-odds-advantage/

[moneymaker]

Good link utcsox, Makes me feel like a sucker buying 6 tickets. Who knows maybe nobody will win and it will go higher. I know some people that are playing that normally don’t play.

[utcsox]

No one won on tonight’s drawing. The jackpot is expected to rises to $1.3B.

[FlyerInHi]

I bought a tix for $2 but I didn’t win.

I will buy a New York apartment if I win.

[spdrun]

Buy a brownstone in Fort Greene.

[phaster]

[quote=XBoxBoy][quote=flu]
So if I were to play, my numbers would be 1,2,3,4,5,6[/quote]

As unintuitive as it may seem, those numbers are just as likely (or unlikely) to hit as any other numbers. It might be worth thinking about whether other people would be likely to pick those numbers though, since you share the pot. Ideally you want a set of numbers that is less likely to be picked by someone else.[/quote]

POWERBALL RULES are:

(we draw five white balls out of a drum with 69 balls)
(and one red ball out of a drum with 26 red balls)

I’d venture to guess there is an ever so slight “summation distribution” bias if you actually think about the problem of “white” balls in a slightly different way

we know the end(s) of “tail” of five random white balls would be the series

1+2+3+4+5

69+68+67+66+65

and in the middle would be 35+34+36+33+37

what I’d have to think about for a while is I’d think there would be a ever so likely greater central “summation” tendency whose frequency would be slightly more likely than at the “tails” (given lots of trials)

another sight bet to increase one’s odds of winning (a larger pot) I’d think would be to stay away from numbers 1-31 because people have a lucky bias “system” to pick numbers associated with birthdays

in the end these two slight edges IMHO aren’t worth time/effort to work out (given the overall odds),

http://www.decodedscience.org/winning-powerball-ticket-odds/21066

so I’d just ask for ONE quick pick and like everyone else hope to get lucky!

[scaredyclassic]

Wife and I decided if we win we won’t move. Estimated we have about 150,000 we could spend. The remainder is pretty much extra. She wants to keep working. I guess I will too. I might buy some art by Chris ware. I’ll keep the Honda Accord though

[moneymaker]

Scaredy I have the opposite problem, my wife would quit so I would also be forced to quit as well so that we could be together on our journey. If it were just me I would continue working, for how long I don’t know. I think winning has caused problems for a lot of couples, divorce,etc.

[poorgradstudent]

Well, I was thinking of playing when the total was ~900M but I was a little too lazy to go buy a ticket.

Now that it’s gonna break 1.3B I’ll go buy at least one $2 ticket.

[Author]

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