Ask HN: Why doesn't somebody buy every combination of the Powerball?
With how big the powerball is, it now seems feasible for somebody to buy every combination and still come out in the green.
Odds to win = 1/292,201,338
Cost of Ticket = $2
Buying All Combinations = $584,402,676
Current Prize ~ $1,300,000,000
Takehome Annuity(1) ~ $900,000,000
Lump Sum Takehome ~ $550,000,000
You'll likely end up splitting the prize at this point with at least one other ticket which will put you in the red by over a hundred million. This is the primary deterrent.
1: After 30 years of payments. 900m is lower end after state taxes. https://www.usamega.com/powerball-jackpot.asp
if she can be considered a legend then someone can do it with powerball?http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/How_lottery_l...
The powerball jackpot is shared so you would need to factor in the likely number of people you would share with which would be complicated to figure out.
There are cases in gambling where the jackpot is not shared, for example poker machines.
The odds of winning remain fixed, yet the jackpot slowly increases, moreso when there are many machines linked to build the same prize.
At a certain level of jackpot the math works out and it's a sound strategy to pour money into the machines.
See: break even point https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_jackpot
Here's a person who's written about dedicating their life to this approach: http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Slots-Peter-Liston/dp/0...
If you were going to invest in lotto with shared jackpots I've heard anecdotes that choosing numbers 32 and higher is a better way to go because people tend to pick birthdays. I think looking at past drawing results and whether there was a winner or not you could analyse if numbers are picked disproprotionately, but I'm not sure what sample size would be needed to generate meaningful results.
All that said, I can think of many things I'd rather develop expertise in than reverse engineering the payout odds of poker / progressive jackpot machines.
1. Possible splits: should you win and have to split the pot you would probably lose a large amount of money.
2. Timing: You can't purchase the tickets fast enough. Say, for example, you wanted to purchase all of the tickets. Even if you purchased a new ticket each second, with only 86,400 seconds in a day and 292.2M outcomes, it would take you something like 5.5 years to fill out all of the tickets.
Some discussion of the state lottery win on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1t8ool/til_i...
http://www.damninteresting.com/the-enlightenment-guide-to-wi...
http://www.fitz-cpa.com/gambling.aspx#GM7
Once you are in AMT territory, you lose the deduction.
It's why the martingale strategy sounds ok in theory but fails in practice. You don't have infinite money (plus most tables have max bids too)