What are the odds of winning the Powerball?
The Powerball
is one of the most famous games played by Americans on a weekly basis. It is
played in 42 state, D.C., and the U.S Virgin islands. It started out in 1987 as
a Multi state lottery as the years went on more and more states joined. Many
new rules and options of the game and how it is played were added somewhere
kept and others were taken away and are no longer used. The chances of you
winning the Powerball are slim to none. You have about a 1 in 175,223,510
chance in winning the Powerball. Your odds get even worse when you look at the
chances of winning the mega millions jackpot, which is 1 in 175,711,536. The
reason those numbers are so high is because you have to take into consideration
that when selecting your numbers for the Powerball its between 1 and 59. This
causes a lot of possibilities to occur. There are about 5,006,386 ways to
distinctly choose five numbers between 1 and 59. Then after picking those 5 numbers between 1
and 59 you have to pick a number between 1 and 35 for the “Powerball”. Then in
order to figure out the possibility of winning you have to multiply 5,006,386
by 35 and you get 175,223,510 possibilities of winning the grand prize. There
are many other smaller prizes you can win such as all 5 numbers, four numbers
and the “Powerball” and so on. Your chances of winning go up every time the amount
of numbers correct goes down. There ends up being nine ways you can win the Powerball.
The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 31.85. That seems to be why so
many people continually go back to buying Powerball tickets over and over again
in the hope that they will win. They do this because they see the possibility
of winning a bunch of money yet they don’t know the statistics behind it. There then is the option of the Power Play
which is to add on that allows winners to increase the amount of money that
they win. You can win this if your winning prize is more then the jackpot you
will win a larger cash prize. I think
what brings people back to always buying Powerball tickets is the chance to win
big, but in the end its very very very unlikely that you will win a substantial
about of money in the long run. It blows me away that playing the lottery is a
$50+ billion business, as it is the biggest form of gambling in the United
States.
Many people
say oh I have a better chance of something unheard of and crazy happening; this
is due to the fact that it’s really hard for people to grasp the chance of
winning 1 out of 175,223,510. That is a really hard thing to visualize as you
can visualize and grasp 1 out of 50 or 1 out of 75,000. Here are some crazy
things that are more likely to happen then winning the Powerball. You are more
likely to get hit walking across the street the chances of the happening are 1
in 701. Being a movie star? 1 in 1,505,000. Getting stuck by lightening 1 in
134,906. Chances of you dying in a plane 1 in 7,178. Being born with extra toes
of fingers 1 in 500. Odds in becoming the president? 1 in 10 million. How about
getting attacked by a shark, 1 in 11.5 million. You also are more likely to die
on your way to buy a Powerball ticket then to win the lottery. So next time you
go to buy a Powerball ticket think about the odds of it happening, you have a
better chance for all of those crazy insanely unlikely things to happen before
winning the Powerball.
There is a
huge Powerball that was drawn for this Wednesday for 550 million dollars. Many
people went out and bought extra and more tickets in hope of winning. However
nobody had the winning numbers so the next drawing will be Saturday November
15th, 2014. Say you do win the Powerball you don’t get all of the money at once
is gets paid to you over 29 years!! If a single winner had won on Wednesday
they would have taken home 360 million before taxes. Taxes are placed on the winnings after it is
won, because states see it as a “profit” so they tax it just as they would your
income. Also you have to think you have to pay a federal tax of 25% as well as
your state tax that you live in, so in the end you don’t win 550 million. So
pretty much don’t waste your money on a Powerball ticket keep it and invest it
in something else!
Works Cited:
"11
Things More Likely to Happen than Winning the Powerball Jackpot." NBC
News. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
<http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/28/15510840-11-things-more-likely-to-happen-than-winning-the-powerball-jackpot?lite>.
Staff,
CNN. "You, Win the $550M Powerball Jackpot? It's Not Happening." CNN.
Cable News Network, 28 Nov. 2012. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/27/us/powerball-odds//>.
NEW
YORK (CNNMoney) -- You Are Not Going to Win the Lottery. "Why the Lottery
Is Not a Good Bet." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 30 Mar. 2012. Web. 14 Nov.
2014.
<http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/30/news/economy/lottery-bad-bet/index.htm?iid=EL>.
"Crazy
Facts." Crazy Facts. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
<http://crazyfacts.com/tag/lottery/>.
I knew that the lottery had really slim chances but I didn't know how big they were! In addition to that, I didn't know you get taxed for your winnings and you don't get it all at once. Like you stated, it is a big waste of time. My economics teacher says the lottery is a "tax on people who can't do math." Which is exactly right since the statistics show that one should be strongly against buying a lotto ticket.
ReplyDeleteThe chances of winning the lottery are so incredible. I think that it's pretty smart of the lottery company to trick these people and making it seem so believable to the people that they could possibly win, not even knowing that they have such a microscopic chance. It also amazed me that you don't get all of the money that you won at once and it would take almost 30 years for you. Taxes aside, is there a specific reason that it would take that long to get all of the winning money? Overall, I would agree with you that the Powerball is not worth spending money for.
ReplyDeleteInteresting choice of topic. It caught my attention to read the statistics behind Powerball. The large numbers compared to a small chance of winning are very eye opening I still cant believe many people fall into these ideas that they can be really lucky to win a large amount of money. At the end, with that small percentage of winning, they still end up taking taxes away from it. At the end, Powerball does not end up giving you the total amount. crazy
ReplyDeleteI like that you brought up the powerball because it is the most popular. It is crazy that you only have a 1 in 175,223,510 chance of winning. Personally I have never bought a lottery ticket but I believe that in moderation, buying lottery tickets can be a fun, silly thing to do.
ReplyDeletePeople go crazy whenever the Powerball jackpot is well over 300 million dollars. I remember my parents buying a few tickets just because the jackpot was so large but the best we got was matching 2 numbers from a while back. Yeah, those odds of winning the lottery are very slim as opposed to other events which are slightly more likely of achieving but then again its still very small.
ReplyDeleteI was aware of all the taxes that goes with winning the lottery, but I wasn't aware of getting paid yearly and not up front. After reading this summary you're making it tough for me to buy a ticket. I've boughten a couple tickets to be honest, but obviously haven't won. Even though I haven't on yet there is a little bit inside me that believes that I can win. I am part of the problem I suppose. When you said there are people who still think that can win because there is a chance I immediately thought of myself as one of those people.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the summary of the power ball and seeing the chances of you win. I have to disagree with the last comment you made about investing your money in something else. For the small investment of $2 you could potentially win well over 100 million dollars. If you want to talk about a smart investment, $2 for potentially $100,000,000 seems like a smart investment to me, just saying. Great summary!
ReplyDeleteI found this summary very interesting since it is honestly a topic that is talked about in my house. So I had essential idea of the powerball with the taxes and not being paid up front. I do agree with you that it is pointless to spend money in the powerball when it could be spent on something else.
ReplyDeleteYour post was quite entertaining but i feel that all it did was explain what powerball and megabucks are. i was left questioning about more of the math behind them. i know you touched on the math briefly but the post seemed extremely shallow and one-dimensional.
ReplyDeleteThe summary was interesting, learning about the chances you have to win. My parents buy me lottery tickets every year for Christmas and I never win anything but my brother always wins money, it's so unfair.
ReplyDeleteI think this post just portrays the human behavior when it comes to money. Even with the chances of winning infinitely reduced, but the jackpot infinitely increased, people would still have high hopes of winning. Its not the chances of winning which motivate people, its the size of the jackpot; at least that's how I see it. However, I am interested in the figures of the above-mentioned probabilities, such as, the probability of getting hit by a car, being struck by lightening etc. I was just wondering how you arrived at this probabilities and are they universally true (are they true for any place and time in the world), or are they just specific to one place and/or time?
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing the logic behind it rather than the thought that the probability is 1/n where n is the number of people playing the lottery, it's pretty ridiculous to see how slim the chances really are. I also really liked how you showed how other things that are portrayed to be unlikely are more likely than winning the lottery.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that you wouldn't get the money you win at once that it would take 29 years so that's interesting. I liked how you explained that you are more likely to get attacked by a shark or get struck by lightning than win the lottery. I think that shows how much you are gimbaling when playing the lottery. I also agree with Zach my economics teacher also said the lottery is a tax on people who can't do math.
ReplyDeleteIt's just so amazing how slim your chances are at winning the lottery. I think you have a greater chance at dying then winning the lottery. I also liked this blog because I watch a show on the lottery and you wrote some stuff that I didn't know before. I think it's cool how just $2 can turn into $300 million if you get the right numbers.
ReplyDeleteThe Power ball really seems like a rip off, as if the lottery is robbing people. But the catch is, that people are willingly getting robbed. The odds are not in the people's favor, and the lottery knows that. The odds of the lottery are amazing, and I agree that it is in everybody's best interest to save their money and not buy lottery tickets.
ReplyDelete