# Is there actually a way to outright buy a share of a lottery jackpot?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-actually-a-way-to-outright-buy-a-share-of-a-lottery-jackpot/761356>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [July 31, 2016, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-actually-a-way-to-outright-buy-a-share-of-a-lottery-jackpot/761356 "2016-07-31T04:00:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2018, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-actually-a-way-to-outright-buy-a-share-of-a-lottery-jackpot/761356/41 "2018-03-17T00:15:58Z")

</div>

> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> The non-jackpot prize usually accounts for about 25% of the ticket revenue. If you get 5 numbers, but not the special one, that nets $1 million.
> 
> There is usually between 1 and 4 winners of the million dollar prize.

I wrote a script once to figure out the non-jackpot prizes - I don’t remember where it is and I’m too lazy to rewrite it, but it was a nice piece of change.

For instance, the $1,000,000 for five numbers gives you $25 million, since you would have the 5 numbers 26 times (once for the jackpot, and the other 25 power ball choices).

I do recall reading somewhere that the $1 million is actually limited by it’s weekly pari-mutual value, so if a lot of people hit it, you might not get the full $1 million for it.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-actually-a-way-to-outright-buy-a-share-of-a-lottery-jackpot/761356.md?page=2)