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Are you buying Powerball tickets? What’s your strategy?
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Powerball. (MGN)
The jackpot for Wednesday’s Powerball drawing now stands at $425 million — the richest Powerball pot ever — and it’s likely to get even sweeter.
“Back in January, we moved Powerball from being a $1 game to $2,” says Mary Neubauer, a spokeswoman for the Iowa lottery. “We thought at the time that this would mean bigger and faster-growing jackpots.”
It’s proved true. The total, she says, “has been taking huge jumps — another $100 million since Saturday.” (The most recent drawing, on Saturday night, produced no winning numbers.)
Until now, the biggest Powerball pot on record — $365 million — was won in 2006 by eight Lincoln, Neb., co-workers.
Will you be buying tickets for Wednesday night’s drawing? What’s your strategy for playing Powerball?
I don’t usually play lotto games but joined the lotto pool at work. I figure I’m contributing to a few people’s hope before we start Obama’s financial Armegeddon…..not to mention I’d sure hate to be the last remaining worker in my division @ remote chance they scored the big one. What a horrid thought……everyone filing out of the plant except me!
When ever I am in a store that sells tickets, I buy three or four. Will probably have around forty or so chances for Wed night. My wife believes in fate and buys just one ticket per drawing. I’m guessing she is the smart one here!!!
If one is a “person of science” you know that the chances of winning are purely random and the only “strategy” you can possibly use is to buy the maximum number of tickets to thereby increase your chances of winning. ( Considering the odds, I’ll buy zero.)
Being trained in statistics, I understand the odds. They are terrible. Hence, I never buy a lottery ticket, but I am glad other people do. I will defend people’s rights to make foolish decisions.
Being vaguely familiar with statistics, even I can arrive at the odds if one does not buy a ticket; it equals 0. Paying for a ticket only slightly improves those odds, but I’m buying the (remote) chance to win and the chance to dream about what I would do with the money.
The Powerball lottery is a voluntary tax. In this case all you get for that tax money is a ticket to dream… nothing wrong with that. But I would rather see 42 people win $10M than one person win $425M, or even 425 people win $1M. I guess it’s proven that huge jackpots will bring out the rubes for at least one chance. I’ll be one of them.