I bought $20 in tickets and won $4.
That’s the thing about lotteries. When the jackpot gets really high millions of people buy tickets. So the odds someone will win are actually pretty good. The odds that someone will be you are infinitesimally small.
I find it interesting how the jackpot snowballs. As the pot gets bigger, ever more people buy tickets making the headline number even larger. Of course this means the pot gets larger again.
About 15 years ago, I played a few tickets when the payout got very large. The winning ticket was sold nowhere close to me, but a ticket that matched five numbers was sold where I bought my ticket which would pay out $1 million. I had seen the numbers listed in the paper and remembered the first three numbers. I go to check my ticket, and one has matched the first three numbers that I remembered, so I figure that I must be the $1 million dollar winner. I check all of the numbers, and I only matched those three numbers. I think that I won about $8 and was massively disappointed.
I wish the lottery were set up in such a way that instead of one person getting $900 million, it would be 90 people each getting ten million.
It is much more beneficial that way - spread out the wealth, and also reduce the notoriety/danger/publicity that each winner faces.
These people have zero conception of what they’ll be getting themselves into. The lottery people insist on a filmed press conference that you cannot skip out on. From that point forward every huckster on the planet, every desperate/greedy relation, every asshole who wants a slice of your newfound windfall will all be beating a path to your door. You’ll HAVE to make certain hard choices at every turn in terms of what you do with it, and the con artists will be salivating at the chance. Your stress level will go through the roof.
This is in addition to the psychological changes documented in the currently active rich people thread.
I instead spring for $1 once the Jackpot game’s pot hits $2 million. 3 sequences for a dollar for a modest win which will help pay bills but won’t warp myself or my life totally to hell (literally).
Incorrect. There are a number of states that allow you to remain anonymous while claiming the prize. If I recall, there have been two such from New Jersey.
That sort of thing is also why one of my first two calls after such a win will be to a lawyer (the other will be to a tax/financial advisor). Should I ever win, which is extremely unlikely as I very seldom play.
Frankly, I’d be ecstatic with one of the smaller wins, like 1 or 2 or 3 million which would be transformative but not overwhelming. Hell, I’d settle for $50 to be honest, although like everyone else I’d love to have more than that.
That’s the case here in Virginia. I’d be tempted to show up wearing a V costume with a voice distorter in the mask (or just remain silent), but better sense would probably prevail.
I was heretofore unaware of this. In fact, that only became the case in 2019. Good.
Yeah, I used to be with the crowd that only plays the big lotteries when the jackpot rolled over to an amount that reached (or at least came close to) a theoretically positive expected value on my ticket purchase (e.g. ticket price £1, odds of winning 1 in 100 million, jackpot of £100 million). I guess I knew that EV isn’t really too relevant for odds that long, I just liked feeling a little mathematically smug about it.
More recently, I realised that not only is the chance of winning so small as to make it practically irrelevant, but actually, I don’t even want to win a billion - I’m not even sure I want to win a million. I’d certainly far rather gamble (a small amount) of money on (say) a 1 in 100,000 chance of winning £100,000, than a 1 in 100 million chance of winning £100 million. The former amount would let me fulfil a couple of long-held dreams (fast classic car, little speedboat) without any question of drastically changing my lifestyle (i.e. I couldn’t retire/buy a huge house). The latter comes with a whole heap of its own problems.
When I was taking my math class in college, probability and statistics, we all wanted to learn the formula for calculating the odds on winning the powerball. And our professor made a memorable statement about gambling, saying improbable was not quite the same thing as impossible.
I’d like to win a million which, in the US, after taxes is something like 300,000. It would enable me to set up the sort of retirement and long-term security I’d like for myself and a few very select friends I am planning to retire with anyway. We won’t be the idle rich, but we’d have a nice place to live and the ability to keep it up for the next 30-40 years. I’d still be calling a lawyer and a tax/financial person because I’d want to mange it properly rather than pissing it all away.
If I had a 100 million? Honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do with all that. Which, again, is why my first two calls will be to a lawyer and a tax/financial advisor. I can fantasize about making a lot of people on GoFundMe and Patreon very, very happy but I’d want to use my new-found financial superpower for actual good.
One tip if you play is that while there is no way to increase your chances of winning the jackpot, there is a trick to increase your expected payout should you win.
Everyone has an equal chance of winning the jackpot for any chosen set of numbers. But if multiple people choose the same numbers, and that wins, they split the pot.
So, what you want to do if you play is try to pick unique numbers. You’ll have no better/worse chance than others, but you’ll be less likely to have to split it should your equally likely picks come up.
Low numbers are generally the worst expected payout because people tend to choose their numbers based on dates that are meaningful, and months go to 12 and days to 31. So a good rule of thumb is to put all your numbers 32 or greater. (Except the Powerball, it only goes to 26.)
There are probably sites out there that track the most commonly chosen numbers by people who play the lottery. They can probably give you the least picked numbers. (Of course, if everyone uses those sites, the outcome will be changed as people start flocking to the previously less popular numbers.)
The drawing, which was supposed to be an hour ago, has been delayed indefinitely due to technical difficulties.
People are going to lose their shit over that delay. Not that half of them haven’t gone nuts already.
If I understand the nature of the issue, if I went to 7-11 right now and got a ticket, it’ll be for Wednesday‘s drawing, right?
Yes. The drawing cuts off at 9:45 PM Eastern, so any tickets purchased after then are for the following drawing.
This 7-Eleven clerk can confirm that wholeheartedly.
The jackpot got up to $2.04 billion.
There is a winner, or winners, of the jackpot. It’s unknown yet where the winning ticket or tickets were sold.
I hope it wasn’t the lady in the fifth paragraph of this post, because she’s already obnoxious.