It has been over two months since someone last picked all six numbers correctly in Powerball — and because no one won on Wednesday, the pool has bloated to a mind-blowing amount of money. "I don't even know how to describe it. This has never happened before," California State Lottery spokesman Alex Traverso told The Los Angeles Times Thursday.
Cut to the chase — how much will I win?
The current estimated Powerball jackpot is $800 million. It could increase to $900 million by Saturday's drawing.
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Okay, I'm in. How much does it cost to play?
$2.
What are the odds I'll win?
Any given ticket has a 1 in 292.2 million chance of winning.
Sounds all right!
Actually, no. "The probability [of winning] is so small, dare say impossible. It's like trying to count electrons or drops of water in the ocean or grains of sand in the world. We just can't imagine these types of things," Jeffrey Miecznikowski, an associate professor of biostatistics the University of Buffalo, told The Associated Press. Try your luck out for yourself: The odds of winning are the same as flipping a quarter and getting heads 28 times in a row.
So how do I pick the winning ticket?
Your odds are actually better if you let a computer pick, according to Scott A. Norris, an assistant professor of mathematics at Southern Methodist University. Because people tend to use birth dates and favorite numbers, they generally pick numbers below 31 — and there are 69 numbered balls in play. The Multi-State Lottery Association says that about 75 percent of tickets are computer picks and about 75 percent of winners are computer picks.
Does it help to buy more tickets?
The short answer is yes, but keep in mind that the odds are still really, really, really low even if you buy a bunch of tickets.
Okay smart guy, what if I buy all of the possible number combinations?
Fine — but at $2 a ticket, that would cost you $584 million and, after taxes, that would mean you end up actually losing money.
So what happens if no one wins?
The next prize is expected to surpass $1 billion.
I won! Now what?
Decide how you get paid. The millions can either be doled out over 30 years, or in an immediate $428.4 million in cash. Keep this in mind: Federal and state taxes eat up about half the earnings of the cash prize option.
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