Huge Lottery

[MarkBarrett]

One quick pick for me as I have yet to follow through on my joking threat to spend $10 on five sets of the same numbers to try to claim 5/6ths of the jackpot.

Imagine the hype if it is not hit tonight?

[TheConfessor]

I don't follow lotteries very closely, but I noticed that the odds of winning the jackpot are a lot worse now than they used to be the last time the Bored got excited about it. I looked it up and found that they added a lot more numbers a few months ago, so that changed the odds from about 1 in 175 million to 1 in 292 million. So even with a jackpot of $500 million, after you take the cash value and pay taxes and don't have to split it, you'll net about $200 million. So buying a $2 ticket at 292 million to one is still a terrible deal. But I might go buy a few anyway.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/ ... ckpot.html

[CarShark]

Unbelievably, nobody won tonight. The jackpot now goes to $675 million, with a cash value of $413.1 million. Just...wow. 15 people became instant millionaires, with one winning $2 million from the multiplier. How high can it go? EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention that this is now officially the BIGGEST lottery jackpot in American history. Fun stuff.

I don't follow lotteries very closely, but I noticed that the odds of winning the jackpot are a lot worse now than they used to be the last time the Bored got excited about it. I looked it up and found that they added a lot more numbers a few months ago, so that changed the odds from about 1 in 175 million to 1 in 292 million. So even with a jackpot of $500 million, after you take the cash value and pay taxes and don't have to split it, you'll net about $200 million. So buying a $2 ticket at 292 million to one is still a terrible deal. But I might go buy a few anyway.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/ ... ckpot.html

Yeah, their decision to go from 59 white balls to 69 white balls was pretty controversial. They tried to make up for it by having more people hit the Powerball itself, it still means a lot of losing and a lot of jackpot rollovers.

[TheConfessor]

Damn, I bought a ticket and gave it to my waitress at the pub quiz tonight. I was hoping we would be the inspiration for a chick flick movie. Guess I'll have to buy some more for the next drawing.

[silverscreenselect]

Unbelievably, nobody won tonight. The jackpot now goes to $675 million, with a cash value of $413.1 million.

I need to borrow this guy's DeLorean for a few minutes to do some research.

[CarShark]

With a day and a half before the next drawing on Saturday night, the jackpot is now up to $800 million!

[SportsFan68]

I bought my tickets Thursday when the line was short. On Saturday, the place where I usually buy my tickets will have a long line all day.

[CarShark]

After three frenzied days, the Powerball jackpot has risen to $949.8 million. The cash value is $588.9. Here are the numbers:

16-19-32-34-57 and the Powerball is 13. In a couple of hours, we will find out if we have a winner, or whether we get a record 19th rollover. Best of luck to everyone!

[littlebeast13]

After three frenzied days, the Powerball jackpot has risen to $949.8 million. The cash value is $588.9. Here are the numbers:

16-19-32-34-57 and the Powerball is 13. In a couple of hours, we will find out if we have a winner, or whether we get a record 19th rollover. Best of luck to everyone!

I remembered the 5-line QP I picked up the other day had powerballs all between 11 and 15, so I got excited.... until I checked and saw I had two 11's, two 12's and a 15. Not that it mattered since I didn't match a single number on any line. Tickets like that should be worth something too...

Oh well, I gotta go to work now...

lb13

[TheConfessor]

No winner tonight, so it looks like $1.3 billion on Wednesday.
https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/6860 ... gr%5Etweet

I had about 160 combinations covered, mostly in a pool. Not sure if we will try again.

[silverscreenselect]

No winner tonight, so it looks like $1.3 billion on Wednesday.
https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/6860 ... gr%5Etweet

I had about 160 combinations covered, mostly in a pool. Not sure if we will try again.

That's okay; I didn't want to mess with a measly nine figure jackpot anyway.

[MarleysGh0st]

I might buy a ticket, but I'd never stand in line for hours to get it, like some of the people they showed on the news doing so.

[CarShark]

I might buy a ticket, but I'd never stand in line for hours to get it, like some of the people they showed on the news doing so.

If you buy it today, there probably won't be much of a line. On Wednesday after people get home from work, it'll be crazy!

[littlebeast13]

I might buy a ticket, but I'd never stand in line for hours to get it, like some of the people they showed on the news doing so.

If you buy it today, there probably won't be much of a line. On Wednesday after people get home from work, it'll be crazy!

I'm always amused when I see the lines on the news (Of course, the reporters are always gonna go wherever they know it will be the busiest). I have yet to run into a lottery line, and there have been a number of instances in the past 20-25 years where a huge jackpot has created a mania. Then again, I live in a lower-middle/working class town where you can't walk 15 feet without bumping into a business that sells tickets. I'd imagine most of the lines that would require Disney World wait time signs are in more rural locations, or places where playing the lottery is a hipster thing to do when the jackpot gets ginormous...

lb13

[silverscreenselect]

I might buy a ticket, but I'd never stand in line for hours to get it, like some of the people they showed on the news doing so.

If you buy it today, there probably won't be much of a line. On Wednesday after people get home from work, it'll be crazy!

I'm always amused when I see the lines on the news (Of course, the reporters are always gonna go wherever they know it will be the busiest). I have yet to run into a lottery line, and there have been a number of instances in the past 20-25 years where a huge jackpot has created a mania. Then again, I live in a lower-middle/working class town where you can't walk 15 feet without bumping into a business that sells tickets. I'd imagine most of the lines that would require Disney World wait time signs are in more rural locations, or places where playing the lottery is a hipster thing to do when the jackpot gets ginormous...

lb13

They had footage on the 11:00 news last night of a rural convenience store that was swamped, but that store was on the Alabama border (no Powerball in Alabama), so people were driving to the closest Georgia location that sold tickets and a line formed. But I didn't see much in the way of lines anywhere I went yesterday (one person ahead of me at the Publix where I bought my ticket).

[SportsFan68]

I'm gonna buy mine today -- hoping for enough matches on the last drawing to fund my next futile purchase . . .

[BackInTex]

Jackpot just got updated to $1.4 billion (cash value of $868 million).

Someone started an office pool for $5 each. I had to play. I'm not going to be the one left behind. I think of it as insurance.

Of course I bought a couple numbers yesterday, just in case I was walking around lucky and didn't know it.

[ghostjmf]

Oh, groovy. One of my #s hit. Unfortunately, it was one of my "regular" #s, & it matched the powerball #, which on my card was something else, so I get nothing.


I never play, normally. The store clerk threw up their hands trying to explain what I should do & handed me a card & told me to figure out the choices myself. I didn't realize order of choices (except the Powerball choice didn't matter & that whatever order the little marbles fell out of the machine, they'd reorder them low-to-high.

At any rate I may buy another. I would settle for being one of those people who "only" won a million this time around.

[ghostjmf]

Some local TV news people ran a story on #s that hit more often than others. Which makes no sense if lottery is really random. They were mostly high #s, which also tells you some thing (amount of labelling ink makes the marbles-whatever heavier?) but 13 was among them which is why I made 13 one of my regular #s this time.

I should look up what this show said were the other more-frequent #s.

[littlebeast13]

Some local TV news people ran a story on #s that hit more often than others. Which makes no sense if lottery is really random. They were mostly high #s, which also tells you some thing (amount of labelling ink makes the marbles-whatever heavier?) but 13 was among them which is why I made 13 one of my regular #s this time.

Aw, come on, ghost. You know you picked 13 because of your fondness for me!

In all seriousness... I've always wondered why if you drop the balls in the same way and pull numbers at the same time intervals why the same set of numbers doesn't get drawn every time. It's not really random if the drawings all follow the exact same procedure...

lb13

[silverscreenselect]

Some local TV news people ran a story on #s that hit more often than others. Which makes no sense if lottery is really random. They were mostly high #s, which also tells you some thing (amount of labelling ink makes the marbles-whatever heavier?) but 13 was among them which is why I made 13 one of my regular #s this time.

I should look up what this show said were the other more-frequent #s.

There will always be some numbers that hit more often than others in a lottery. That's how random numbers work. The Powerball changed its rules a few months back and just added these high numbers for the first time. It stands to reason that some of them will have hit a higher percentage of the time simply because there haven't been enough drawings in which they were included to allow the laws of probability to bring their numbers back to the average.

[Estonut]

There will always be some numbers that hit more often than others in a lottery. That's how random numbers work. The Powerball changed its rules a few months back and just added these high numbers for the first time. It stands to reason that some of them will have hit a higher percentage of the time simply because there haven't been enough drawings in which they were included to allow the laws of probability to bring their numbers back to the average.

Intuitively, I would expect the new higher numbers to hit at a lower percentage for the exact reason you cite. To me, they'd have to be at a lower percentage if they were available for a lesser number of draws. Where are the mathematicians?

[ghostjmf]

SSS:

I didn't know Powerball only recently added those higher #s. TV reporters left that out.

I'm remembering that scandal from years ago where for some lottery the mechanism, streams of air, that kept the balls in motion wasn't working randomly. Something like that.

[Bob Juch]

Some people just can't do math:

[Bob78164]

There will always be some numbers that hit more often than others in a lottery. That's how random numbers work. The Powerball changed its rules a few months back and just added these high numbers for the first time. It stands to reason that some of them will have hit a higher percentage of the time simply because there haven't been enough drawings in which they were included to allow the laws of probability to bring their numbers back to the average.

Intuitively, I would expect the new higher numbers to hit at a lower percentage for the exact reason you cite. To me, they'd have to be at a lower percentage if they were available for a lesser number of draws. Where are the mathematicians?

Numbers that are available for fewer drawings would have higher variability, in both directions, until the law of large numbers has a chance to do its work.

There comes a point, of course, when the variability is high enough to call into question the uniformity of the random process used to select numbers. But I would hope and expect that both the Lottery itself and interested observers pay enough attention to such matters to raise an alarm if it occurs. --Bob