Posted on 12/05/2012 12:39:50 PM PST by navysealdad
....and by the way they did attribute this to John at the bottom of their post.
Not only that, but, PowerBall is drawn 2 times a week. If you started buying tickets, say, immediately after the last drawing, there would not be enough TIME to purchase 15 billion tickets. Further, there is no guarantee that you would win UNLESS you submitted 175 million tickets, covering every combination possibility. And, there probably isn’t even enough TIME to do THAT...
Not only that, but, PowerBall is drawn 2 times a week. If you started buying tickets, say, immediately after the last drawing, there would not be enough TIME to purchase 15 billion tickets
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Back when the ‘lottos’ were basically 1 state per (I mean no multi state) some ‘genius’ (as is normal in a free society) figured he could hire enough people to buy the required # of tickets to cover every #...at that time there was only 1 drawing a week and multiple jackpots were very common.
‘They’ tweaked the system, went to 2 draws per week and it was virtually impossible to run all the numbers.
Since it was tweaked, the dual winners are rare where it was once common.
I had to double check this story wasn’t originally {reported} by the Onion.
You’re probably right but it’s clear to me that a lot of people don’t start playing until the jackpots are large (myself included).
In the most recent run, the jackpot didn’t grow faster than the $10M minimum until the 9th rollover. In the 15th rollover, the jackpot went from $325M to $587.5M.
So either the house wins (by playing its own game), or the jackpot rolls over, thereby attracting more players....I guess I’d try it on a smaller scale than $30B per round. Also I am conflating the federal government with the state governments.
What I’ve wondered....instead of putting current bets into the current jackpot, why not put current bets into the next jackpot? (As I understand it, they do some of that but not much).
I figure around 285M played the last round of the last big jackpot, and 30M played the Power Play. That put $332M into the prize pool.
About $132M was paid out on non-jackpot prizes.
So wouldn’t it be better to start the next jackpot at $200M rather than $40M? The $200M jackpot would already be funded, unlike the $40M jackpot.
Now yes, fewer people would play if the jackpot had been advertised at $325M the whole way rather than starting at $425M and then winding up at $550M, with the eventual jackpot being $587.5M.
It looks like around 14M played the 1st round of the next jackpot, with an additional 3.5M playing the Power Play, with $9.5M paid out in nonjackpot prizes.
Not until after I reloaded the page. (IOW, it wasn't there when we posted it wasn't there, for whatever reason). That has been cleared up, now.
Frankly, I don’t see why the lottery can’t just rip off everyone and declare no winner and offer no excuse for not having a drawing. Take the money and pay down 0bama’s debt... for 4 minutes.
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