VIDEO: Are certain numbers better for winning the $425 million Powerball?
November 27, 2012 at 5:16 am in Grand Forks Herald
No one won the Powerball drawing over the weekend. That means a record jackpot of $425 million will be up for grab on Wednesday. Besides that very large amount there are some interesting numbers behind Powerball drawings. Continue Reading
These are probably the same people who shopped on black friday. Gook Luck Savages!
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Made a list of everything i wanted on Black Friday.
Sat down at the computer and ordered every single sale item i wanted for the same price.
No lines and its all being delivered to my front door.
Why people continue to wait in lines and act like fools at ungodly hours is beyond me.
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What did you buy me?
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my wife has a term for lottery tickets, stupidity tax.
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So its in your nature to just make fun of anyone who does something different from you?
Disregard the fact that a portion of all sales goes to the state education dept and that lessens your tax burden.
Disregard that a person may skip a coffee from Starbucks and instead buy a ticket making the cost a wash.
And finally…. Hows that “Stupidity Tax” going to look when your neighbor wins?
Wont look too stupid then will it.
Odds may be tremendously against a person for winning the jackpot but to buy a little hope with $2 isnt asking too much.
People who belittle others for wanting to dream a little irritate me.
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I play it as well which my wife claims is foolish and yes, I play it for fun and yes, if I would win would donate at least half of it to non profits. I did not belittle those who play it. Again, you make an absurd assumption and you know what they say about assume.
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i didnt “assume” anything.
You were pretty clear in the remark that that your wife calls it a stupidity tax.
or did i imagine that part?
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I wouldn’t exactly call it a “stupidity tax” although most people that buy lottery tickets fall in the “less educated” category. They don’t have a clue on the mathematical probabilities associated with a mathematical concept called “Expectation”. If one were to access the gambling aspects of the lottery, one is way much better off pissing away their money by going to a Casino. For example, you walk into a Casino with $100 and walk out with $85. Expectation is 0.85. The house makes 15% by taking that cash away from you. The lottery has an Expectation more in the line of 0.2. One is also more likely to be struck by lightning multiple times in a lifetime than winning any lottery.
Most people also don’t realize it is a “voluntary tax”. Sure, we benefit from the windfall it brings the government coffers but government has duped these people in the lower tax brackets to contribute in a different way. In that respect, if people are stupid enough to do it, I’m fine with that.
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I never understood the mentality to only buy a ticket when it gets big. Like 25 million wouldn’t change your life enough to bother with a ticket. Of course you’re not going to win so put the $ 2.00 in the bank and save it.
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Where can you get $2.00 worth of fantasy anywhere else? I only play when it gets higher than 300 million. Call me a sucker.
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Well if someone is only going to play on occasion, doesn’t it make sense to play when the pot is high?
Makes sense to me. Hopefully you understand now.
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I guess the plus side, beside the money, is that the winner discovers how many “friends” he truly has.
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I quit the Powerball once they went to $2. I figured if I consistently didn’t win anything on 5 picks for $5, then why would I want to double that fun? Occasionally I’ll buy 5 Mega Millions, but not too often since I heard a person compare winning to being in a huge stadium of people crammed in like sardines and one drop of rain was going to hit one person….And that’s basically the same chance anyone has of winning. It’s one thing to read the extreme odds, it’s another to have a visual to put it into perspective.
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If by huge stadium, you mean a 1 mile X 2.5 mile stadium with 176 million people squeezed inside, then, yes, that’s the odds of winning this lottery. The good news is, it’s a free country. I’ll keep my $2. Others can spend theirs.
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dont spend tht $2 all in one place.
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Mark it down on the calander! I agree with capt amerika on this one. There is nothing wrong with throwing a few bucks to buy a lottery ticket. Someone has to win it, why not you. Gambling is something people do for enjoyment. if you feel the need to stick your nose up at us, please do it quietly, because you look stupid making fun of us.
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there are people in Arizona and Missouri right now that are thrilled that they spent a couple of bucks.
Me, not so much.
But thats life, back to life as usual.
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One has to wonder tough…How many people who really can’t afford to toss away $10 or so did so with the extreme pipe dream that it was their turn to win? There really is the biggest problem of all this…You an I can afford to toss a few buck into it without it really making a difference to our budgets (I’m assuming the same for you), but how many can’t do that without having to cut things like food on the table? You can only wonder…
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Congrats to the winners of the powerball, and to the rest of you, I guess it’s back to the bar for beer and pull tabs.
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You got to have control. Spend what you can afford on enjoying life a little. My mother goes to the casino to play nickle slots about once a week. She spends ten bucks tops and seldom reaches that peak. She’s having a little bit of fun. No harm done.
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If only…If only people could learn from your mother. For me, I can go to the casino, have a glass of beer and a snack, breath some second-hand smoke and not put one nickel in the slots. Why can’t people be more like me?
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Then again unless you have a casino in your town…You could do all that locally without driving all the way to a casino
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I have passed college statistics and college calculus courses. I understand your return on investment for that 2 dollars is through the roof if you win. I also understand that if you buy 20 tickets your odds of winning do not change beyond a insignificant percentage compare to if you buy just 1. Your odds at the casino change significantly depending on what games you play. The slots are terrible, keno/bingo are worse. Blackjack is 49 percent if played perfectly, and poker depends upon the player. You see we are not stupid and uneduacated you male donkey! We gamble because it is an enjoyable experience for us not because we will strike it rich.
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