Spain’s Christmas lottery, nicknamed “El Gordo” distributed $2.4 billion in prizes last month, with the top prize at $811.2 million, split among 1,950 tickets.
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You score the big one and hold the winning Powerball ticket for and estimated $1.4 billion.
Saturday’s winning numbers – 16-19-32-34-57 and Powerball number of 13 – did gain some people a little wealth: 25 tickets won $1 million by matching five numbers, and three other tickets won $2 million because they paid extra to multiply smaller prizes.
And by flooding the system with all those tickets you purchased, the lump-sum value of the jackpot would rise by $200 million – which you’d be guaranteed to get back.
This is a new world record for any lottery jackpot game that can be won with a single ticket.
All it would take is one other victor to make your $584 million investment unprofitable. Tickets expire one year after the game’s drawing. At $2 a ticket, the strategy would cost about $584 million, and when taxes are subtracted, you’d end up losing money.
So if you’re dead set on buying a lottery ticket, at least walk.
Some of those were likely people who purchased multiple chances on the same slip of paper, Berg says. “I don’t think they’re afraid of taking another shot”, Walsh said.
There were 440 million tickets sold during the previous drawing. Between Jan. 6 and Saturday’s drawings, more than $900 million in Powerball tickets were sold. Last February, when the jackpot hit $564 million, the odds were 1 in 175 million.
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All three tickets used the Quick Pick option, which allows the computer to pick the numbers. By 1991, the state had itself a record victor when Darlene and John Sharp of Havre bought a winning ticket for a $47 million jackpot that seems pretty paltry these days. That alone would give you a handsome $284 million profit if you bought every ticket.
