The last time Powerball got up close to this number, someone ran the calculations and determined that someone would have to have all the ticket machines in a state (I think they used CA as the example) running non-stop for the 4 days between the Sat and Wed drawings in order to play all the numbers and then you would be at risk of 1 more person also winning it which would put you at a loss. More winners, bigger the hole.
reed13k wrote: “The last time Powerball got up close to this number, someone ran the calculations and determined that someone would have to have all the ticket machines in a state...”
May have been powerball, may not, but about 15 years ago a group decided the pot was large enough and tried to buy every number. Paid people to buy tickets. Ran into issues with malfunctioning machines, etc, so they didn’t buy all the numbers. Still, they bought enough and won the jackpot. Made somewhat of a profit since they did have to split the pot. Forgot all the details but there were steps taken to prevent a recurrence.
If one player kicked $600M into the current jackpot this drawing, it would raise the total payout substantially.