Powerball Strategy: Can You Boost Your Chances Of Winning? Jackpot At $1.4 Billion Wednesday
With the January 13 Powerball lottery jackpot at an inconceivable $1.4 billion — and counting — as of Monday afternoon, and with ticket sales expected to top the staggering 440.3 million purchase for last Saturday’s $948 million drawing, players are likely looking for any edge or strategy that seems to increase the chance of winning the whole thing and becoming a billionaire overnight.
Is there really any Powerball strategy that can increase your chance of taking home the all-time world record jackpot?
One thing is for sure — there’s no shortage of theories about how to create better odds for winning. For example, in the following video, self-described seven-time lottery winner Richard Lustig, author of the book Learn How To Increase Your Chances of Winning the Lottery, offers some of his tips that he says will help players better their chances of becoming rich in the blink of an eye thanks to a winning lottery ticket.
For example, one of Lustig’s “secrets” is to avoid playing “Quick Pick” numbers, that is, allowing the lottery computer to select your numbers at random.
“Every time you buy a quick pick, you get a different set of numbers; therefore, your odds are always going to be at their worst in that particular game, whatever game you’re playing. In this case, the hype, of course, is all about the Powerball right now,” Lustig says.
His advice sounds logical. Unfortunately, statisticians say, it is totally wrong. The randomly-drawn winning Powerball numbers are exactly that — random. That means any combination of numbers has the exact same chance of coming up every time the Powerball drawing is held. Whether the numbers on your ticket were picked randomly by a computer, or carefully based on some combination of your children’s birthdays, it makes no difference at all.
Your odds will always stand at 292,201,338 to one, no matter how you pick your numbers.
That may simply be caused by the fact that most Powerball players can’t be bothered to take the time to select their own numbers. Especially when buying multiple tickets, it’s much quicker to let the computer do the heavy lifting. That’s why they call it a “Quick Pick.”
RELATED STORIES:
Lottery Ripoff? Half Of Most Frequent Prizewinners Are Licensed To Sell Lottery Tickets
Luckiest Lottery Player Ever, Joan Ginther: Her Winning Secret — Hint, It’s Simple But Expensive
New Powerball Lottery Winner: Did He Have A Secret That Could Help You Win The Lottery Too?
Powerball And Lottery Strategy: Can You Really Beat The Odds And Win Millions?
But, take heart — there is, indeed, one method that will definitely increase your chances. And Fox News nailed it.
Welp, @FoxNews has some helpful advice on how to win the lottery #powerball https://t.co/1Pnavn8HSU pic.twitter.com/lLXmoa2MiZ
— Boing Boing (@BoingBoing) January 11, 2016
Yes, the only real way to increase your chances of winning Powerball is — buy more tickets.
That strategy can be financially risky to say the least, however.
To guarantee that you win the Powerball jackpot, or at least a share of that $1.4 billion prize, you would need to purchase 292,201,338 tickets — the same number of tickets as possible combinations of numbers. And it’s not even that simple. Those tickets can’t all be Quick Picks. Each ticket must have a different number combination.
At $2 per Powerball ticket, that’s an investment of $584,402,676. Which seems like a lot. But look at this way. If you happen to have 500 million or so bucks lying around, with a guarantee of winning $1.4 billion, pouring it into Powerball tickets will bring back a profit of $815,597,324.
Those figures don’t take into account the bite taken by taxes, or the time it would take to fill out 292,201,338 Powerball number slips and run them through a machine. As CNN Money noted, even a rate of one slip per second, a pretty optimistic estimate, it would still take nine years to but that many tickets.
But, there’s one more catch.
While a player who is somehow able to purchase 292,201,338 unique Powerball tickets would definitely win, because there will likely be upwards of 500 million tickets sold, there’s a good chance that someone else might also, by sheer chance, hit the jackpot, as well.
In that case, the $1.4 billion Powerball prize gets split down the middle, resulting a payout of $700 million, making the strategy of buying as many tickets as possible a risky one after all.
[Photo by PathDoc/Shutterstock]
