# Is this lottery factoid bogus? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [September 30, 2013, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-lottery-factoid-bogus/670039 "2013-09-30T21:23:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-lottery-factoid-bogus/670039/81 "2013-10-21T20:27:26Z")
> [@tim-n-va](#): > > I think the organizations that run the lottery should allow an easy way to buy all combinations - in effect a winning ticket. The buyer would still face a risk that more than one person also bought all combinations or that someone bought a single ticket that happened to win. Really? Then you have no idea of the odds. Odds for the Powerball are roughly 175 million to 1. They just re-jiggered the MegaMillions up to 258 million to 1. The number of people both able to and willing to buy all possible combinations at once is a staggering…_zero_. Besides the entire logistics of purchasing that many tickets at once. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-lottery-factoid-bogus/670039/82 "2013-10-23T14:59:36Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Odds for the Powerball are roughly 175 million to 1. > The number of people both able to and willing to buy all possible combinations at once is a staggering…_zero_. Well, the Powerball jackpot is over $200 million right now. So, the only risk Bill Gates or Warren Buffet would be taking in buying 175 million tickets is having to split their winnings with other people. How many billionaires might think the entertainment value balances that risk? Crap. I forgot that Powerball is $2 a ticket. So none of that applies until the jackpot gets over $350 million. Point remains: the number of people _able_ to buy that is fixed, the number _willing_ changes based on the projected payout. Oh, and one of the changes the Virginia Lottery made after that Australian Investor thing was to make it impossible to print every possible combination in the time between drawings. They never said **how** they made that in possible, only _that_ they’d made it impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-lottery-factoid-bogus/670039/83 "2013-10-23T15:28:30Z")
> [@SpyOne](#): > > Well, the Powerball jackpot is over $200 million right now. So, the only risk Bill Gates or Warren Buffet would be taking in buying 175 million tickets is having to split their winnings with other people. How many billionaires might think the entertainment value balances that risk? > > Crap. I forgot that Powerball is $2 a ticket. So none of that applies until the jackpot gets over $350 million. The _Annuity_ option is over $200 million. The cash option for tonight is only $124 million. _Pre-tax_. So you’d need to spend that $350 million for tickets and then you’d need a cash option payout of about $630 million (depending on the state you live in), which would require an annuity jackpot of about $1.1 billion. Which is about twice the current record jackpot. Just to break even. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2013, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-lottery-factoid-bogus/670039/84 "2013-10-23T15:50:17Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > 1992 was 20 years ago, and I am ready to be corrected about the ultimate fate of the money. Could you please provide a link to some news story about the final outcome? I have been looking to see if I could corroborate your claims, and the closest I get is an article from 2004 that says that Virginia levied a 30% tax on the jackpot, that “the members of the syndicate fell out, and in 1995 our hero Mandel was declared bankrupt”. Of course, Mandel maintained that he owned no part of the jackpot, although his wife did, so him going bankrupt doesn’t really say anything about the jackpot getting paid. By my math, each of the investors should have gotten something like $378 per year for 20 years as their share of the payout (70% of 27 million, divided by 20 years and 2500 people). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-lottery-factoid-bogus/670039.md?page=4)