I saw this on the news the other day and something didn't add up...
It appears to me they are giving a person's lifetime odds of being bit by a shark or stuck by lightning, etc..., against winning a single game of Powerball.
So I attempted to figure out lifetime odds.
If any singly ticket for a game has a 1 in 292 Million chance of winning then if someone played every week (twice a week) for 50 years they would play 2 * 52 * 50 or 5,200 games.
Instead of having a 1 in 292 Million chance they now have a 5,200 in 292 Million chance of winning a Powerball jackpot in their lifetime (50 years of playing every game twice a week.)
Well 5,200 / 292,000,000 = 1 / 56,153....
That means if you play every game for your entire life, starting at 18 to 68 , you have a 1 in 56,000 chance of winning a Powerball jackpot!
Those odds aren't nearly as bad as I thought.
Further if you played 5 games instead 1 game ($10 instead of $2) your odds of winning a jackpot go up to a mere 1 in 11,00.
Sure it's not likely, not by a long shot- but in a country of millions of people, 1 in 11,000 isn't that bad.
And that's just winning the jackpot. Adds are far better to win the $1 million second prize in your lifetime.
As for the cost? Ignoring interest, assuming current prices, the cost of playing 1 game twice a week for 50 years is $10,400. And playing 5 games at a time, of course $52,000. About a thousand a year.
It appears to me they are giving a person's lifetime odds of being bit by a shark or stuck by lightning, etc..., against winning a single game of Powerball.
So I attempted to figure out lifetime odds.
If any singly ticket for a game has a 1 in 292 Million chance of winning then if someone played every week (twice a week) for 50 years they would play 2 * 52 * 50 or 5,200 games.
Instead of having a 1 in 292 Million chance they now have a 5,200 in 292 Million chance of winning a Powerball jackpot in their lifetime (50 years of playing every game twice a week.)
Well 5,200 / 292,000,000 = 1 / 56,153....
That means if you play every game for your entire life, starting at 18 to 68 , you have a 1 in 56,000 chance of winning a Powerball jackpot!
Those odds aren't nearly as bad as I thought.
Further if you played 5 games instead 1 game ($10 instead of $2) your odds of winning a jackpot go up to a mere 1 in 11,00.
Sure it's not likely, not by a long shot- but in a country of millions of people, 1 in 11,000 isn't that bad.
And that's just winning the jackpot. Adds are far better to win the $1 million second prize in your lifetime.
As for the cost? Ignoring interest, assuming current prices, the cost of playing 1 game twice a week for 50 years is $10,400. And playing 5 games at a time, of course $52,000. About a thousand a year.