Community Chat

[Shorty2U]

My husband played another lottery here thinking everyone is playing the power ball. Well it paid off for another person, someone a few towns over won half a million. Good for them. They must have been thinking the same way as my husband that no one is focusing on the other lotteries right now.

I only played the powerball the past 2 times. (as in my entire life) Not playing it again, too widespread and now I read people from Canada are crossing over the boarder to play which is fine, but that makes it even MORE far fetched.

My husband will remain in the powerball pool at work.

Good luck to those who play.

[LyndaGee]

I forgot to buy tickets last week, but bought two yesterday.  I'm familiar with the saying: "More money, more problems," but willing to take my chances !!!

[truffle]

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@MaggieMack wrote:

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@truffle wrote:

I'm sure everyone knows this  but when the pool of players is at its largest the odds of winning are at its worst.  If you don't mind a smaller grand prize one should only buy tickets when it starts over.  

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@truffle, can you explain this to me so I can understand the logic? Winning is based on the numbers of the balls that come up, it doesn't have anything to do with how many people play. If I was the only person in America buying a ticket, I would still have to match all the numbers.

I do agree that the more people that play, the more likely it is that you might have to share the pot.

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Good point @MaggieMack.  I guess there doesn't have to be multiple winners just seems like there would and that got me to wondering why the grand prize got so high and I found this interesting article that explains everything.

Prize Pools Are Going Up Because Powerball Just Became Much Harder To Win

In October, the consortium of states that runs Powerball approved a series of rule changed that made it much harder to win the jackpot. Under the new rules you select five of 69 numbers, up from five out of 59 numbers. The choices for the Powerball was actually reduced from 35 to 26. Still, this decreased the odds of winning the jackpot from 1 in 175 million to 1 in 292 million.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2016/01/11/3737974/powerball-lotteries/

[Havarti]

I figure it is $2.00 spent for peace of mind. Since someone will eventually win, I might always wonder “what if”. Deep down I know I never even win the lowest payout so I am not going to win a billion, just like millions of others who are playing. But…I will know I tried and that destiny didn’t pick me this time. Now, if I could just get peace of mind in other areas of life for the reasonable price of $2.00.

[DoneTryin]

I'm beginning to feel a little sick to my stomach at thought of someone just plunking down a few dollars & winning such a huge amount of money.  They didn't do anything to earn the money, so where's the value to it?  All I can say is good luck to the winner(s).  I hope you do better than some past winners of large prizes who wound up with some unhappy consequences.