recent change in its matrix Guido

Pizarro Jersey , Powerball reclaimed the infamous position of being

the most outrageously exploitive lottery game in the United States, a position

previously held by another despicable game known as the Mega Millions.

In

the new Powerball matrix, which is denoted by 559 + 139 for brevity, the player

selects 5 numbers from 1 to 59, plus, a Powerball number from 1 to 39. With such

a format, the chances of winning the jackpot have jumped to nearly one in 200

million to be exact they are 1 in 195,249 Gonzalo

Higuain Jersey ,054. Similarly, Mega Millions with a matrix of 556

+ 146, has jackpot odds of 1 in 175,711,536. When mentioned like this, they are

nothing more than just numbers, but the real questions is what the physical

significance of these numbers is.

A visitor to our web site, US Lotteries

(dot com) Gabriel

Mercado Jersey , once asked to buy the printout of all the possible

Powerball combinations. At first thought, it would appear to be a simple and

lucrative business idea since a few lines of computer program with a very

powerful machine can generate the numbers. So far so good. Then, we tried to

figure out what would be the size of the book that would hold all the numbers.

We picked up the biggest and most common book around and it happened to be the

Merriam Webster s Collegiate dictionary, which has 1,600 pages of fine print and

with 100 lines a page laid out in two columns. We determined that we can fit

four columns of Powerball numbers on a page each with 100 lines, which means

that we can print 400 combinations on a single page. Well, some of us were quite

surprised to find out that the dictionary can hold only 640,000

combinations Fernando

Gago Jersey , and for all the 195,249,054 Powerball numbers we will

require 305 dictionary sized books. A similar calculation would result in 275

books for Mega Millions. You can now imagine what it means to pick the right

Powerball or Mega Millions number combination in order to hit the

jackpot.

As if picking the right book out of 305 or 275 is not hard

enough, one has to flip through 1,600 pages of that right book to pick the right

page, and then the right number out of the 400 numbers on a page. In fact, a

player would be very lucky if heshe can pick the right book at the outset much

less proceeding to the next two steps. It certainly is true to say that you have

a better chance of being hit by lightning than to hit a jackpot. However, note

that this cliche would be a fallacy if the last word Federico

Fernandez Jersey , jackpot, as many people say it, is replaced by

lottery, since thousands of people win $100,000 or more every year in the

lottery while less than a 100 get killed by lightning. Moreover, if it serves as

a consolation, you have a better chance of hitting either a Powerball or a Mega

Millions jackpot than being elected as the President of the United

States.

One may argue that Powerball and Mega Millions are not only about

the jackpots, there are also lower prizes as well. Nevertheless Facundo

Roncaglia Jersey , the odds of the second prizes are not comforting

either. They are 1 in 5,138,133 for Powerball and 1 in 3,904,701 for Mega

Millions to get a 5 of 5 without the Ball. These are equivalent to picking a

number from 8 and 6 dictionary sized books, respectively.

Although

millions of people play these games, there is usually no jackpot winner week

after week simply because the ticket sales are not large enough to cover all the

possible combinations, therefore many numbers are left out. As a

result Ezequiel

Lavezzi Jersey , consecutive no winner draws will drive the big

prize up to several hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, the people at

Powerball and Mega Millions will be rejoicing every time there is no jackpot

winner since it means more ticket sales; so will the players, since it means

another shot at the big money on its next draw. Some people have even

established the notion that these games are rigged to draw unsold numbers in

order to elevate the jackpot. Why on earth would anybody bother to rig these

games and get in trouble while the beautiful science of probability takes care

of it.

Certainly, as the jackpot amount grows, more and more people start

playing the game and more and more numbers get covered. Even the most ardent

critics of the big lottery games will start spending a buck or two. Who will not

be lured by the fact that a dollar can buy such an exorbitant amount. After all,

it is, as the saying goes, nothing ventured nothing gained; or no guts no glory.

And somewhere Ezequiel

Garay Jersey , sometime, however long it takes, somebody wins, and

it might as well be you. But don t count on it, since it is like finding a

number from 305 books each with 1600 pages and each page with 400 numbers.

Author's Resource Box

If it helps, the authors web site, http:us-lotteries, presents data and analysis of all