The Powerball jackpot has soared to an estimated $1.04 billion after no tickets matched all six numbers in Saturday night’s drawing.
Saturday night’s drawing produced white balls 19, 30, 37, 44 and 46 and red Powerball 22.
The $1.04 billion prize – an estimated $478.2 million in cash value – is the second-largest jackpot this year, topped only by a $1.08 billion prize won on July 19 by a ticketholder in California.
So are PowerBall and Mega Millions now rigged to make sure that the jackpot always hits $1B before a winner is drawn?
I imagine their sales go up fast when so-called “news” outlets (like this community) report that it’s hit that level.
Never mind that it makes your already infinitesimal odds of winning even smaller, when the regular jackpot would already be a life-changing amount of money. People who only buy tickets when the jackpot goes up are just falling even harder for the scam than those who buy when the jackpot is “low”.
The odds of winning don’t change based on the number of people who buy tickets.
But the odds of sharing a prize do.
Yes. Though, that is an artifact of the rules of the payout; everyone’s chances of winning are exactly the same.
The expected value of a ticket goes up. At some point it’s higher than the cost of the ticket.
The odds of winning are always the same, so why are the ones buying tickets less often falling for the scam harder? It’s dumb too, but conceptually speaking it’s a better return on investment if you win somehow.