Only a ticket holder who opts to collect the jackpot in annual payments will gets the entire $1.5 billion. The old slip has 10 fewer numbers than the current one.
Advertisement
No one matched all six Powerball numbers Saturday night, leading to the astronomical prize. Seventy-five percent of all the possible combinations were purchased before Saturday’s drawing, Grief said, and he expects that enough tickets will be sold to cover about 80 percent by Wednesday. But overall Hoosier Lottery sales totaled $242.5 million in 2015, up from $226.3 million in 2014.
So Powerball is not the lottery to play if you care about making a good investment.
ESTEM High School math teacher, Mark O’Laughlin, said while the odds remain the same no matter the jackpot, with so many new faces playing, be prepared to share if you do win.
The jackpot has ballooned since its November 4 starting point of $40 million and spurred huge ticket sales.
(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki). Momtaz Parvin pulls Powerball lottery tickets from the printer at her store in Oklahoma City, Friday, Jan. 8, 2016, as the multi-state jackpot reaches $800 million.
Tickets for Wednesday’s drawing can be purchased until 9:50 Wednesday night at any Massachusetts Lottery retailer in the state.
According to the Arkansas Lottery Director, in one week, the state sold $19 million worth of Powerball tickets, nearly triple the amount it typically sells.
Behavioral economists say that by hyping lucky stores, the lottery industrial complex is, unwittingly or not, capitalizing on the foibles of the human brain, which is frequently befuddled by the concept of randomness.
Other insane things that have better odds than winning the jackpot Wednesday include becoming an astronaut (12.1 million to 1), being killed by a vending machine (121 million to 1) being struck by lightning or being killed by a flesh-eating virus (1 million to 1).
Matheson and colleague Kent Grote researched 23,000 state lotteries and found that just over 1% represent a net positive investment. The odds of winning might be greater than 1 in 292 million, but Louisianans have won the Powerball jackpot 15 times since the state joined the game in 1995.
Time to go get your Powerball tickets!
May I remain anonymous if I win?
Advertisement
The three most overdue numbers? You don’t want to blow it all in one spot.
