Professor Explains Why Your Chances Of Winning "Powerball" Are Next To None!

[Joel_Jantsen]

I deliberately posted this video in the gambling section because this Statistics professor gives nice insights how probability works and the concept remains the same weather it be lottery or a jackpot.The video might motivate you a little.

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh35K0oY8B8E8X4Z0z

[Pony789]

I deliberately posted this video in the gambling section because this Statistics professor gives nice insights how probability works and the concept remains the same weather it be lottery or a jackpot.The video might motivate you a little.

http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh35K0oY8B8E8X4Z0z

It is nothing surprising TBH. For those interested in it, you can find on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerball#Prizes_and_odds the odds of winning each prize.

[thejaytiesto]

Everyone knows winning the big prices in lottery are next to impossible. Of course, even the smallest prices are hard to nail ( I have only won the lottery 2 times and they were the smallest prices you could get, so that's less than 300 dollars in total) so you can imagine. But it's just like gambling, it's all about the thrill of that small, small opportunity of winning.

[DuddlyDoRight]

It'd cost you over five hundred million dollars to play every possible number guaranteeing jackpot. They are picked by using two rolling cage barrels with ping pong balls. One with 1-64 balls one with 1-26 balls. The odds are around 1:292000000(not exact just use combinatorics) at $2.00 a ticket and $3.00 with the randomly selected "POWER PLAY" multiplier which is 2x-10x.

By The Way:

• No edge picking your own numbers
• No edge playing when there are less people buying tickets(numbers aren't picked from registered buys)
  
• Around $340.00 to play 5 numbers with "POWER PLAY" using "MULTIDRAW" at 26 draws. Doesn't give edge just saves you time, gas, wear on vehicle

All lotteries and casino games have house odds that's why the house can payout so much. But someone somewhere will win a lot sometimes and that is what makes you play.

[edmundduke]

The chances are pretty much non existent as proven. It should not come as a surprise to anyone tho that the chances are so small. Even if it is nearly impossible to win it doesn't really hurt to get a ticket. I dont play lotto often but i do get a ticket from time to time just for the fun of it.

[DuddlyDoRight]

The chances are pretty much non existent as proven. It should not come as a surprise to anyone tho that the chances are so small. Even if it is nearly impossible to win it doesn't really hurt to get a ticket. I dont play lotto often but i do get a ticket from time to time just for the fun of it.

It does actually.. Most people who buy lottery tickets in the US make $9,000.00-$38,000.00(not data but they have to that's almost the entire salary range for the US just about the entire US adult population). That's 0.02%-0.01% of their annual income which, since people typically spend the same margin of their income no matter their salary(old economic stuff), is coming out of around 11% of that salary, so at $38,000 is around $4,400.00 a year worth of disposable income. That's one ticket per year..

That's now 0.04% of that $38,000.00->$4,400.00 a year for one ticket. One ticket a week is 2.18% and so on.. Remember kids.. we only get around 35 years of earning money before we die and if you werent gifted a house you'll spend at least a third of it towards that..

[Raimonn]

All the people new that is near impossible, but there is one possibility (from millions) to win it, and its a very big prize, and all the players think what to do with this amount of money, and dreaming is only 2$. Everyone dreams to be a millionaire.

[UnknownUsername]

Ah, its still a good amount to win though betting small and you might get rich for a lifetime. My dad won in a lottery worth $1,000+ but it took like 2 years for him to win it if only he got the last digit. We would be cruising around the world right now. 

[xhomerx10]

It'd cost you over five hundred million dollars to play every possible number guaranteeing jackpot. They are picked by using two rolling cage barrels with ping pong balls. One with 1-64 balls one with 1-26 balls. The odds are around 1:292000000(not exact just use combinatorics) at $2.00 a ticket and $3.00 with the randomly selected "POWER PLAY" multiplier which is 2x-10x.

By The Way:

• No edge picking your own numbers
• No edge playing when there are less people buying tickets(numbers aren't picked from registered buys)
  
• Around $340.00 to play 5 numbers with "POWER PLAY" using "MULTIDRAW" at 26 draws. Doesn't give edge just saves you time, gas, wear on vehicle

All lotteries and casino games have house odds that's why the house can payout so much. But someone somewhere will win a lot sometimes and that is what makes you play.

So I just did the combinatorics and the result is  1:198,237,312 for the parameters 5 balls from 1-64 and one with 1-26.  How did you get 1:292000000?  Are you factoring in a multiplier or the cost of a ticket or something??

[DuddlyDoRight]

It'd cost you over five hundred million dollars to play every possible number guaranteeing jackpot. They are picked by using two rolling cage barrels with ping pong balls. One with 1-64 balls one with 1-26 balls. The odds are around 1:292000000(not exact just use combinatorics) at $2.00 a ticket and $3.00 with the randomly selected "POWER PLAY" multiplier which is 2x-10x.

By The Way:

• No edge picking your own numbers
• No edge playing when there are less people buying tickets(numbers aren't picked from registered buys)
  
• Around $340.00 to play 5 numbers with "POWER PLAY" using "MULTIDRAW" at 26 draws. Doesn't give edge just saves you time, gas, wear on vehicle

All lotteries and casino games have house odds that's why the house can payout so much. But someone somewhere will win a lot sometimes and that is what makes you play.

So I just did the combinatorics and the result is  1:198,237,312 for the parameters 5 balls from 1-64 and one with 1-26.  How did you get 1:292000000?  Are you factoring in a multiplier or the cost of a ticket or something??

It's actually 69 and 26. I don't play it so I don't remember the specifics.

About the only intelligent material on it on the entire internet: http://www.durangobill.com/PowerballOdds.html


Either way it's house odds with no way to game it since they don't draw from anything influenced by ticket buyers.. The psychological effect where people learn about the winners is where all the magic happens. They can typically not have to pay out and pay out such numbers and always be ahead, but nobody really comprehends the odds or the time so the herd(potential and consistent ticket buyers) stays manageable..

It's no different from the psychology you find in Las Vegas and other currency traps,,, sweepstakes''''

[xhomerx10]

It'd cost you over five hundred million dollars to play every possible number guaranteeing jackpot. They are picked by using two rolling cage barrels with ping pong balls. One with 1-64 balls one with 1-26 balls. The odds are around 1:292000000(not exact just use combinatorics) at $2.00 a ticket and $3.00 with the randomly selected "POWER PLAY" multiplier which is 2x-10x.

By The Way:

• No edge picking your own numbers
• No edge playing when there are less people buying tickets(numbers aren't picked from registered buys)
  
• Around $340.00 to play 5 numbers with "POWER PLAY" using "MULTIDRAW" at 26 draws. Doesn't give edge just saves you time, gas, wear on vehicle

All lotteries and casino games have house odds that's why the house can payout so much. But someone somewhere will win a lot sometimes and that is what makes you play.

So I just did the combinatorics and the result is  1:198,237,312 for the parameters 5 balls from 1-64 and one with 1-26.  How did you get 1:292000000?  Are you factoring in a multiplier or the cost of a ticket or something??

It's actually 69 and 26. I don't play it so I don't remember the specifics.

About the only intelligent material on it on the entire internet: http://www.durangobill.com/PowerballOdds.html


Either way it's house odds with no way to game it since they don't draw from anything influenced by ticket buyers.. The psychological effect where people learn about the winners is where all the magic happens. They can typically not have to pay out and pay out such numbers and always be ahead, but nobody really comprehends the odds or the time so the herd(potential and consistent ticket buyers) stays manageable..

It's no different from the psychology you find in Las Vegas and other currency traps,,, sweepstakes''''

 Those numbers work much better.  I can't play the draw where I live but I would buy a ticket if it were available even though the odds are astronomical.  It's only two bucks and as you said, "somebody somewhere will win..."

[ftwbtc1]

The power ball is nothing more than a tax on the poor and the hypocrisy of governments to even allow lotteries while not allowing poker or sports gambling is absurd.  The government outlaws poker and sports gambling where if you are skilled you can actually win A LOT of money, but allows you to waste your money playing the lottery which is the purest form of possible chance of any game. 

This 1.6 billion dollar prize is also another contrived act by the government to reinvigorate the lottery after lagging sales by making the chances of winning less thus creating a higher pot. 

I feel sorry for most Americans who participate in the lottery because they are wasting money that they desperately need. 

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Someone said that lotteries are a tax on the mathematically-challenged, and I'd agree with that.  Chances are next to zero, and the odds are against you always, so why play at all?  For some people it's fun, but I hate throwing money away like that.

[sherbyspark]

And apart from that the you are 8 times more likely to die if you drive to buy a lottery(powerball) ticket /

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/40ol2d/til_that_if_you_drive_one_mile_to_the_convenience/

[DuddlyDoRight]

Before any of you pass judgment on these ticket buyers realize this is the same psychology that people use when they buy a house for $8,000,000 while making $2,000,000 a year instead of the $250,000 house they would when making $34,000 a year and so on..

You read 1/3 of any level of economics book this is stated..

People are typically stupid. Capital doesn't really change that and acquiring wealth rarely comes because someone is just disproportionately smarter or more hard working..

[debuni]

National lotteries are the worst time of gambling with the biggest "house edge" in existence.
And I'm sick of people giving 1/3 of their salaries for lottery tickets to explain me how bad is to gambler on sport or playing poker and how they are not gamblers and addicted at all...

[Superhitech]

Someone said that lotteries are a tax on the mathematically-challenged, and I'd agree with that.  Chances are next to zero, and the odds are against you always, so why play at all?  For some people it's fun, but I hate throwing money away like that.

Some people just want to try their luck, they view it as only a few dollars for the ticket, and they might get lucky and win the jackpot.
There's huge odds against them, but they buy in the hope they might win the huge jackpot. I don't think these people play for profit like poker players do.

[bitbaby]

I think most people are aware of this, that there is almost no chance of winning anything from these Lotteries but still they are not worried about throwing away a few dollars on them because it gives them a hope. Its foolish but can't tell people how they shouldn't spend their money. There are people who still fall for Ponzi/HYIP/Cloud-Mining schemes, I put them in the same category.

[Umworpol]

Thier business trick is like this .

" I don mind spending a $2 on a ticket a month or so to try out my luck "

Ching Chang heres comes the money .

[krunox123]

This is not a new thing and everyone is aware of it. I'm not surprised, TBH.