So many people buying powerball tickets...

[McHoffa]

If I won could I just anonymously keep an extremely small fraction for myself to retire and let the rest go to ramping up production at Tesla? I'd rather have $10 million to myself than have to live life as the $1.5 billion jackpot winner.

 

[jbcarioca]

If I won could I just anonymously keep an extremely small fraction for myself to retire and let the rest go to ramping up production at Tesla? I'd rather have $10 million to myself than have to live life as the $1.5 billion jackpot winner.

How many of us have thought that? Imagine helping fund a faster Supercharger global rollout, more destination chargers, buildout of increased battery innovation, lithium production and so on. Helping do all that, maybe even profitably... Wow!

- - - Updated - - -

I've decided if I win I'm going to ask SpaceX if they can put a Lunar Module on the Falcon 9 and send me to the moon and back. I want to walk on the moon and collect some rocks, plant a flag, maybe a Tesla flag, pick up the plaque with Richard Nixon's name on it and either throw it into the sun or bury it, generally do the tourist thing, and then come home.

To extract Tricky Dick? Priceless. That said to my external shame my father was an editor on the college paper at Whittier College when Dick ran for his first office. My father endorsed him and remained oblivious through many subsequent elections. Part of that might be apocryphal but I think it was all true. Father never forgave me for minimizing the Red Menace. Now we are in 2016 with the same insanity flourishing.

 

[roblab]

This is true. Disproportionally lower income people buy lottery tickets.

I must note however there was a Berkeley mathematician who bought a lottery ticket to prove how bad the odds are of winning a lottery ticket, and he won $22 million.

He proved it was a million to one shot.

Right now, it's a 300 million to one shot. That's not in the same country, much less the same state. If I had bought one ticket every day for the last 35 years of my life, I would have a one in twenty five chance of winning $4.

That's just stupid. And it's such a drag on the economy. The poor (shall I say "under educated") would rather buy a hundred dollars of Powerball (yeah, they do it over a month or so) rather than pay their rent or lackatricity bill. But since the average IQ is only 100, we'll elect Berney or Donald to change the country.

And still, some people on this forum think they have a chance to Win Big. Same chance as me, and I don't play.

 

[S'toon]

He proved it was a million to one shot.

Right now, it's a 300 million to one shot. That's not in the same country, much less the same state. If I had bought one ticket every day for the last 35 years of my life, I would have a one in twenty five chance of winning $4.

That's just stupid. And it's such a drag on the economy. The poor (shall I say "under educated") would rather buy a hundred dollars of Powerball (yeah, they do it over a month or so) rather than pay their rent or lackatricity bill. But since the average IQ is only 100, we'll elect Berney or Donald to change the country.

And still, some people on this forum think they have a chance to Win Big. Same chance as me, and I don't play.

I wouldn't assume that poor people are under educated. There are plenty of poor people who are well educated. For example, 70% of university professors are actually adjunct professors making poverty level wages ($2000/class) with no benefits.

The $100/month figure on lottery tickets is a bit high too.

 

[Bangor Bob]

On probability you can reduce it quite a bit. For instance it wont be , 1,2,3,4,5,6 or 2,4,6,8,10,12 etc

Dunno the particulars of powerball, but in the 6/49 back in Canada I had a stats teacher that used to play 1,2,3,4,5,6. 1,2,3,4,5 came up one week...

 

[dhanson865]

He proved it was a million to one shot.

Right now, it's a 300 million to one shot. That's not in the same country, much less the same state. If I had bought one ticket every day for the last 35 years of my life, I would have a one in twenty five chance of winning $4.

That's just stupid. And it's such a drag on the economy. The poor (shall I say "under educated") would rather buy a hundred dollars of Powerball (yeah, they do it over a month or so) rather than pay their rent or lackatricity bill. But since the average IQ is only 100, we'll elect Berney or Donald to change the country.

And still, some people on this forum think they have a chance to Win Big. Same chance as me, and I don't play.

I hope you are exaggerating.

You have a 1 in 26 chance of winning more than $4 expected value

Grand Prize 1 in 292,201,338.00
$1,000,000 1 in 11,688,053.52
$50,000 1 in 913,129.18
$100 1 in 36,525.17
$100 1 in 14,494.11
$7 1 in 579.76
$7 1 in 701.33
$4 1 in 91.98
$4 1 in 38.32 *

* Sure, the odds of matching 1 red ball out of 26 are 1 in 26, but we are not giving the odds for matching a red ball. We give the odds for winning a prize for matching one red ball ALONE. If you match the red ball and one or more white balls, you win some other prize, but not this prize. The odds of matching one red ball ALONE are harder than 1 in 26 because there is some risk that you will also match one or more white ball numbers - and then win a different prize.

add all those together and use weighting and you end up with what $4.xx / 26 x 2 or something around 8 cents return per $2 ticket. But if you bought one ticket every day for 35 years that is 12,775 tickets with more than $1,000 dollars in expected prizes (and still well below the tens of thousands spent on the tickets).

Your sentence makes it sound like the 12,775 tickets wouldn't win any prizes or would be against the odds of winning prizes. When in fact you would win plenty of times, just not enough to make it profitable on average.

 

[dmd2005]

Dunno the particulars of powerball, but in the 6/49 back in Canada I had a stats teacher that used to play 1,2,3,4,5,6. 1,2,3,4,5 came up one week...

There was a draw about 6 or 7 years ago in 6/49 and the numbers were 1,2,3,4,6,10 and bonus was 16. Pretty close to a straight.

 

[ohmman]

If you put the names of all of the residents of the USA on pieces of paper, throw them in a (very large) bucket, mix it well, and draw - the chances of pulling your own name out is pretty close to winning the Powerball. Well, assuming you're a US resident. If you're not, the chances are slightly less.

 

[JenniferQ]

Anyone win anything? Ours were a bust. And this is the only time I've ever gone to figure out that whole thing.

 

[techmaven]

Well, out of 6 tickets, we only managed to match a single number. Sigh.

 

[dhanson865]

Well, out of 6 tickets, we only managed to match a single number. Sigh.

hah, gotcha beat. Matched one number on a purchase of 1 ticket.

Now anyone that got 2 or more numbers can beat me.

 

[MikeL]

My lesson on the subject came years ago. On an "easy" day in the film prod. business, we sent a PA up to Idaho, which is where you buy your lotto tix in Utah:wink: I personally sorted thru a fat stack (700 I think) of tickets. A couple hit one number, one hit two
Another perspective: Steve Jobs said his #picks would be 1,2,3,4,5,6 ... Because those have the EXACT same probability as any others. I find humor in that, like most things : )

 

[siucity]

The only reason I would not pick 1,2,3,4,5,6 is because there are a lot of people out there that pick those numbers, and I don't want to share the jackpot with so many others.

 

[MikeL]

Oh yeah, strategy. Funny Steve didn't consider that. I let the computer pick 'em

 

[S'toon]

There was one winning ticket, sold in Chino Hills, CA.

I think I know someone who lives on an acreage just outside of Chino Hills.

 

[MikeL]

Someone please inform that person about TSLA it's on the NASDAQ:wink: I'm gonna need to sell some to pay for the X !!

they should buy like, idk, a million shares.

 

[theslimshadyist]

...I had to park at a gas pump to get one myself!!!

Total fish out of water right there!

 

[skdave]

I want a Big B the hard way. I want to sell my cup holder to 1/2 of the Tesla Owners Tesla Cup Holders

 

[Max*]

as the jackpot goes up, so do the number of participants, increasing the odds of a split jackpot and reducing your EV.

There we go, split jackpot 3 ways.

 

[mrElbe]

Spent a total of $ 42.- on 14 rows with Powerplay and won the princely sum of $ 16.-