Well, that was disappointing. But now that I know how to order a ticket (this was the first time I ever bought one!), I guess I’ll use my new knowledge before Wednesday, just in case.
I agree with @MaineLonghorn that the lottery is a tax on people who don’t understand probability. But for me, it’s a fun splurge and a way to feel like part of a popular trend - since I’m usually completely clueless about sports and celebrities. And a girl can dream, right? 
so far I spent $12 but got nothing back yet. From now with $1.3B jackpot the expectation value is greater than the price of ticket, so its a ‘smart’ investment =D> The winning chances of about 3ppb, $1.3B gives $1.3B x 3ppb = $4. So, I will gladly spend $2 for another ticket If I win the jackpot, I will put 60% in a particular national research project.
Its not all about exact probability, knowing your chances are 1 in 500,000 or 1 in a million. That may factor in the decision how much to spend. But what everyone is focused on is did I win or not. That’s the dichotomy my coworker referred to. You win or you don’t. Yea or nay. It refers to simple events- not those depending on complex formulas and failures that can domino.
ML, no, I don’t think I’d cavalierly apply this to structural engineering, shrug my shoulders and say, the building either stands or it doesn’t.
And I didn’t win. But I did think that, maybe, if I were an overnight hundred millionaire, I’d take some nice, savvy, deserving poor CC kid and pay the college expenses.
I am out the door in a few moments and I’m going to buy a ticket. Something I have not done in years. I will be really disappointed if I do not win since I plan on spending the rest of the afternoon on the inter-webs looking for smallish countries that I might purchase with the winnings. Empress or nothing.
Currently on a plane after spending the weekend in Vegas and my cabbie said that his wife sent him basically to a border spot to buy some tickets. Apparently you can’t buy them in Vegas proper. The line was over a mile long. He said a few enterprising folks had bought tix and were reselling them at a premium to folks in line. I had to laugh. Heck on any given day you can take a couple of bucks and play the mega millions machine, so why wait in line for a powerball ticket?
I’ve always wondered - does the machine that picks your random numbers also pick the winning numbers?
With sales like this, someone could walk with a $B on Wednesday…
In spent $10 on tickets won $4 because I matched the poweball 13 ( had to google the payoffs didn’t know you can just match one number )
Buying for next one …
I bought two. One was a “quick pick”–machine generated–and I picked the numbers for the other one.
I will buy anther ticket for the next drawing . What the heck , it is fun to dream. What I would actually want is to have no debt. I wouldn’t mind buying a home where I grew up. Just for the fun of it, I looked at realtor.com today……actually , for all the homes for sale , there were very few I actually liked. Maybe I would buy a lot of land and build it to my specifications 
What I would love to do is start an foundation to disperse the bulk of the winnings to multiple charities and those in need for various reasons.
I would like enough to be able to help people in my life pay off their mortgages, student loans, etc.
I know that " money can’t buy happiness " but I would be very happy to have zero debt and not have to worry about things
@lookingforward Re #82, the prob of hitting the jackpot is 3ppb, not one in 1Million: 69C5=11,238,513 & the powerball # is out of 26 which makes it one out of 292Million, or 3.4 ppb. Multiple people can hit this number and they have to share the jackpot. The last drawing had expectation value of $2.7 and the next drawing it will be $4, double the ticket price! Winning the jackpot is much harder than getting into Stanford (5% acceptance rate) :x With such low chances of winning, I choose to play just one ticket, just to stay above 0 for my chances 
Can you imagine there is no winner on the next draw?
I don’t play the lottery often. Somehow the idea of purchasing something that has a chance of something like 1 in 292 M feels like tempting fate. There are a whole lot of bad things that can happen with a much better odds that I am not hoping for. I played last time because frankly $2 is cheap for a few days of fantasizing. I’ll leave Lady Luck alone this time.
We were driving back from Ohio today and saw a Powerball billboard. It normally has the amount of the jackpot… but it tops out at 999 million so the jackpot spot was just blank. Guess no one really thought there would ever be a billion+ jackpot lol.
The LA Times is reporting that over a billion dollars in tickets were sold for last night’s lottery. That really puts into perspective how slim the odds are (as we all know) – $1 billion in tickets and still no winner.
Quick – how high would the jackpot have to get before it would be an economically rational decision to buy ALL the numbers? Could Warren Buffett come up with approx $600 million in cash? (292 million combos x $2 ticket). You’d have a guaranteed win, BUT you might have to share the jackpot with others. Should he do it?
PS. Continuing from last post, we’d also obviously have to know the amount of the immediate payout on the jackpot (much lower than the face value), plus the immediate payout value of all of the lesser combinations (5, 4 plus powerball number, etc), and would have discount all those by the likelihood that you’d have to share the prizes.
So again, the theoretical question on the table is whether the jackpot has exceeded the odds enough such that Warren Buffett should buy all the numbers. Paging @ucbalumnus , who is might be willing to do the necessary research into immediate payout numbers for all winning combinations.
If Buffet spends a huge amount of money to win the jackpot then he can have a big deduction for tax. However I think he has better solid plans to make money instead of buying loto tickets.
I can see letting the machine generate one ticket for you and playing one ticket that has sentimental numbers, but that’s an emotional decision, not a logical one. And that’s cool
There is a part of me that wonders if someone has hacked into the system and is gaming it. But that’s the part of me that watches too many conspiracy movies 
I would tour America and visit all the restaurants shown on Food Network, Food Paradise, Diners, Drive Ins and Dives, etc.
if anyone has $600 million in cash you need to launder, here’s your chance!
I wonder how long it would take to print out 300 million tickets? That would be one tired white collar criminal.