Perfect example of near miss bias. Lotteries exploit this bias blatantly in scratch tickets when the winning numbers are always one digit away from several of the "random" pool of playing numbers. Example: you scratch 13 and 69 for winning numbers, guaranteed at least one of the following numbers will be in the pool: 12, 14, 68 or 70 - every time. Good example of Stratified Random Sampling.
That bias carries over to combination Lotteries when single matching number awards a smaller portion of the prize. The more numbers that align with the winning combination, the winnings(and excitement) incrementally increase. Setting the stage for "I almost had it" cognitive conditioning.
I'm no ascended master of my mind... I also bought a ticket and won $4...
It’s interesting you mention the one number off and it excites people.
Every time I play a scratcher and the number is 5 but the prize number is 6 it ends up being a loser without fail.
Well I'm colorblind so there are a few "almosts" there too
And after thinking about for 10 second more, it suck cause there could be times where I thought I won but then someone else looks and goes *"almost"*
>That email from using the app hurts.
The lotto here in Australia will tell you how much you have won in the "congratulations on your win" email if your winnings are smaller than a certain amount. No idea what this certain amount is though but it is over $100 lol.
More than I’ve ever won. I’m incredibly lucky in the fact I’ve never won a single lotto ticket in the almost decade I’ve randomly purchased them on a whim. Probably less than $200 over a decade, good for the day dreams though so I ain’t complaining.
The total number of tickets purchased is referred to as the "pool" and people in 46 different states and various time zones can purchase tickets up to an hour before the drawing. All the states convene to ensure pools are closed and all the sales numbers are balanced *before* the drawing to make sure it's fair. Sometimes, especially when ticket purchases are through the roof, one of the states can take a little longer to double-check their numbers, report their numbers, or run into a technical glitch in the process.
This can happen with any drawing, but when all eyes are on the drawings at over $1B, you really don't want to be the state that screwed up the results. It's better to delay the drawing for security.
Unfortunately, this doesn't stop every conspiracy-brained person from screaming "rigged!" because they can't comprehend the idea of a genuine logistical issue.
I saw the math last time these jackpots got huge and they *do* eventually become slightly +EV, I think somewhere around the 700 million mark.
There are ~300million possible Powerball combinations, but after factoring in the odds of a split, taxes, etc.
There have been a number of billion dollar jackpots and most of them don't get split.
In fact, of the 10 largest, all over 1 billion, all but one was to a single winner with one being split three ways.
It’s higher with Taxes and the payout cut. When it gets this high it’s arguably +EV to buy one ticket, but there’s still the chance that two people win
I used to not give a shit about gambling when it was relegated to just physical casino buildings and lotteries but now that gambling is literally everywhere and in everything I believe it is a scourge on society.
Expected Value. It can get complicated, but it's basically
(your win probability * the net prize) + (your lose probability * net ticket cost)
Assume a charity raffle with 10 total tickets. Tickets cost $1 and the prize is $8 (with $2 being donated to the charity or whatever)
Your EV is
(1/10 * 7) - (9/10 * -1)
(.7) + (-.9)
-.20
In other words, buying a $1 ticket would expect you to lose $.20
So lizards check the numbers and make sure they pick a number not bought, but sometimes they mess up, because lizards don’t really know what numbers are, got it.
My understanding is one of the states hadn’t yet verified/reported their numbers. So the set of numbers that had been chosen by players wasn’t “final”.
My take is they have some silly system where until that happens someone could add a new ticket to the list. So if you draw the numbers before that, someone could side-channel the numbers and cheat by adding their own ticket with the numbers after the draw but before the finalization.
I have no inside knowledge, so this is my best guess.
There's [an episode of of a cyber security podcast](https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/101/) where the host interviews someone who did an engagement with a major lottery organization in Puerto Rico. He goes into detail about the pretty extreme security measures they take (and how even they weren't good enough to prevent a fraud).
I'd have to imagine (hope) that powerball would be operating at least the same or higher level of security. Interesting listen if you want to learn about the inner workings of these types of organizations.
Why does there need to be ticket validation before drawing?
Never mind there’s an explanation below… it makes sense but also….
It makes sense people here are feeling skeptical and emotional because no one here has claimed the jackpot.
But also I didn’t even play lol. I don’t get out of bed until 1.5 billion! SoI’m not complaining.
I've never seen an "exact" explanation. Several of the articles about the delay did make reference to "fairness of the drawing." What I'd suspect is that they want to "lock in" every area's reporting of their sales and ticket numbers they sold before the drawing starts. No mis-counts, discrepancies to be resolved after the fact, etc.
So that Tennessee isn't constantly like *"Oh hey guise, we found another 1000 tickets after you did your little drawing thing, and one of them had the winning number! Again! I know!!"*
As the Powerball folks put it diplomatically / pr-speak in the article:
>This is done to ensure that every ticket sold for the Powerball drawing has been accounted for and has an equal chance to win.
What it really means:
So someone can't manipulate a computer at one of the state lottery headquarters to sneak in the winning number after it is drawn.
Normal nights states cut the sales off 1 or 2 hours before the drawing time in order to let their computers catch up and account for all the numbers sold in that state.
That’s wild lmao. $10 million would be the most money I’d ever need for the rest of my life. So long as it’s a $10 million draw or more my opinion doesn’t change whether it’s 10 million or 1 billion. I’d just give away more over the 10 million.
Participating states have to complete particular procedures legally.
“Powerball game rules require that every single ticket sold nationwide be checked and verified against two different computer systems before the winning numbers are drawn,” the statement said. “This is done to ensure that every ticket sold for the Powerball drawing has been accounted for and has an equal chance to win. Tonight, we have one jurisdiction that needs extra time to complete that pre-draw process.””
You joke but I watched a doc about how the lotteries work and apparently they will do test draws to make sure the machine works and the videos recording properly etc. So imagine how many peoples numbers were drawn but they were test runs so they didn't count.
There's actually a dude suing them right now for this, in his case they accidentally posted the test ticket winner to the website and it was his numbers, dude spent a few hours thinking he won
[NPR Article ](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/21/1232773305/powerball-lottery-mistake-lawsuit#:~:text=Gaming-,Man%20sues%20Powerball%20lottery%20after%20%24340M%20'win'%20is%20denied,.%22%20Now%2C%20he's%20suing.)
It wasn’t just a few hour mistake. His numbers were up on the website for 3 days straight. Which is more than enough time to make some drastic life decisions
I think it’s smart to know every number sold before the drawing. If they didn’t verify all numbers that have been sold, then someone could easily insert the winning number into the system as sold after the draw.
Are you really saying that with a billion dollars on the line no one is going to figure out how to manipulate a printer?
Even with multiple redundant record keeping systems, people have hacked tickets for much smaller payouts such as with horse racing and remote betting stations.
I was having this similar discussion trying to explain this to someone recently.
They're handing over a billion dollars, they're gonna want a little more evidence than a slip of thermal paper from a gas station
Yeah, the system also records the numbers chosen, but that needs to be held conclusively in multiple locations to limit the chance of altering numbers after the drawing.
The story of hacking horse races is actually really fascinating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Breeders'_Cup_betting_scandal
That’s a great point. Since it’s a paper ticket you are redeeming, I’m guessing they’d be afraid of someone counterfeiting a winning ticket. Tickets don’t seem that hard to manipulate, unless they have better security like currency to determine a valid ticket. I’m assuming they don’t have that security feature if this is their current process.
Considering they know exactly what store sold the ticket immediately on drawing it just not the ticket. Stores get a % of the winnings for selling a winning ticket.
That is a product of the current system of reporting all sold tickets before the drawing. Each location reports into the lottery system what tickets they have sold, and that’s why they are able to be identified by the winning ticket.
I think that happened with Lotto Max in quebec? Like 10 years ago. The guy bought two tickets right near the cutoff time and one was in the time and the other one wasn't. When the winning numbers were drawn he thought he won but it turns out that it was seconds over the cutoff. So literally if the tickets have been printed in the opposite order he would have won. I'm also just saying this for memory, I'm not sure on the specific details, maybe I never even happened?
Agreed, but I have to imagine with a jackpot this big, there are a ton more players than the usual lotteries. Which is why there seem to only be delays to verify all tickets in play with the very big jackpots.
I think the entire process is simply you have to cut off ticket sales and then have enough delay to register all the sales before drawing.
Any lottery can do this simply by cutting off sales earlier. So yes, any lottery can get this done by saying simply "sales through saturday, we draw sunday noon".
Powerball doesn't seem to think that cutting off sales earlier for every drawing is better than drawing later for the few which have a lot of tickets sold. And they're probably right.
I heard you had breakfast with Elvis and 👽 at CERN and are going to be there for the demon portal that they open durning the eclipse. Also that you slept with Bigfoot.
This is enough of a deterrent for me surprisingly. I know it's stupid as fuck but every time I think about winning the lottery, I just think about how I can win and get my family and me away from anyone.
In the states where you can't claim anonymously, you can hire a lawyer to claim for you through some double trust fund setup. I think it was called a blind trust, like one trust claims through a lawyer and pays out to another trust that you are in control of.
I'm not clear on the details because I only looked it up superficially, but if you look on lotto sites you see large prizes claimed in the name of trusts and a lawyer is in the picture holding that big check.
You just have to choose a reputable lawyer, and apparently that it can be stupid expensive to do this. A drop in the ocean of what you'd receive still, of course.
I'm taking the annuity.
A shockingly high number of lottery winners go broke -- I'd rather have 30 years of income than a single lump sum that I have to invest and constantly worry about whether or not I'll get a return or if the market will crash.
About 10 years ago the odds were reduced from something like 1 in 125 million to 1 in 250 million.
I played the lotto the first time it hit a billion, won 1 dollar, never claimed it and never played it again.
I agree but it has to be quite costly to replace it in every grocery store, corner mart, liquor store, and every place in between in 46 states. So 999 it is.
I've seen new ones where the millions/billions is also in lights, so it was 1.23 billion instead of 999 million. But really, does it matter? Is anyone not buying a ticket once it hits 1 billion because it isn't higher?
I was a kid when they had to update the mechanics of gas pumps to display prices over one dollar. That must have been a hell of an undertaking.
And now some states are prepping for prices over ten….
The Hot Lotto fraud scandal was a lottery-rigging scandal in the United States. It came to light in 2017, after Eddie Raymond Tipton, the former information security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), confessed to rigging a random number generator that he and two others used in multiple cases of fraud against state lotteries.
PS: unless I win, it must be a fraud.
Incoming conspiracy theory that this sort of touches on…a majority of the instances that the powerball/mega millions gets up to a specific dollar value, no one actually wins (a “winner” is drawn but no one actually wins) and the funds go to fuel the military or war in other countries.
Remember: You're never playing for the dream and hope that it provides. You're playing for the bullying, begging, and harassment from family and friends, stalking and strong-arming attempts from strangers, theft attempts, and substance abuse problems.
thats pretty interesting, In my country they specifically say lotto employees can enter - as a way of showing/proving how secure their systems are. (i.e they are so fair, that even employees are able to play fairly)
That said, after about 30 million they start making it a "guaranteed win" - where the jackpot is divided by the next division down.
Dude in Iowa did this with some of the lesser followed lotteries where the number was chosen by an algo instead of the bouncing balls. Exploited a loophole in the code to make it run in a test mode in on certain day that guaranteed one of something like 17 combinations would be the winner. Used others to claim the prizes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Lotto_fraud_scandal
Brother you do realize the scandal of the person in charge of the lottery numbers giving out winning numbers to family and friends for a while. They definitely can win and have won more than a few times.
The crazy part is - the person with 1 ticket and the person with 500 tickets, BOTH have such a tiny tiny tiny percentage of winning - smaller than the human brain can comprehend.
So while one does have almost 500x better odds at the same time they are both grains of sand on the beach.
Rich folks play $25 slots too, both are a bad idea at anyscale - if you're going to play either you should play the least possible to scratch the itch -
At the odds of the lottery, you're really buying the mental 'right' to think about what'd you do with the money more so than a 'real' chance of winning.
My Econ professor used to call the lottery the “stupid person tax” the odds so low and most of the money goes to the government. It’s just a tax on the people dumb enough to play.
One of the most populated regions of the US? No way!
California is actually #10 on the list of most wins by state even though they have the highest population.
You really need to do your research before you just start spouting BS conspiracy theories.
Take a guess which state has the most Powerball winners.
Hint: It's not California.
It's Indiana.
[https://www.powerball.net/winners](https://www.powerball.net/winners)
California isn't even in the top 5.
What's the point in "players in Oregon, with few exceptions, cannot remain anonymous" ?
It's like a mandatory death mark on your back.
Also, who after winning anything above $10 mill, let alone $100 mill with such laws in place, going to NOT move to another city, NOT change their name and NOT get a completely new face reconstruction so they can live in peace?
I won $4. Now I suddenly have an opinion about the estate tax.
If two of my numbers were 1 number higher, I also would have won $4. To be fair, I've won like $16 in the past year.
Perfect example of near miss bias. Lotteries exploit this bias blatantly in scratch tickets when the winning numbers are always one digit away from several of the "random" pool of playing numbers. Example: you scratch 13 and 69 for winning numbers, guaranteed at least one of the following numbers will be in the pool: 12, 14, 68 or 70 - every time. Good example of Stratified Random Sampling. That bias carries over to combination Lotteries when single matching number awards a smaller portion of the prize. The more numbers that align with the winning combination, the winnings(and excitement) incrementally increase. Setting the stage for "I almost had it" cognitive conditioning. I'm no ascended master of my mind... I also bought a ticket and won $4...
It’s interesting you mention the one number off and it excites people. Every time I play a scratcher and the number is 5 but the prize number is 6 it ends up being a loser without fail.
This, if the numbers were colors people would understand there isn't an "almost".
Blue is almost purple There is no limit in how humans can make connections between dissimilar things
When my family plays Farkle, someone comments every single game that “oh I was soo close to a straight!” when they get, for example, 123446
Well I'm colorblind so there are a few "almosts" there too And after thinking about for 10 second more, it suck cause there could be times where I thought I won but then someone else looks and goes *"almost"*
So what’s your opinion on the estate tax then?
Hmm. I forgainst it!
How much have you spent? Net gain or loss?
All of it. Usually goes to more tickets, but one time I just bought snacks with it.
I won $4 too. $4 club in the comments section.
$8 winner
Mr. Money Bags
It’s gross all these poors with $4 are commenting when you won DOUBLE their winnings.
That email from using the app hurts. Congratulations You’ve won! Runs and Checks app. Holds breath. $4!!!! Yay French fries!
Not in this economy.
>That email from using the app hurts. The lotto here in Australia will tell you how much you have won in the "congratulations on your win" email if your winnings are smaller than a certain amount. No idea what this certain amount is though but it is over $100 lol.
$13,609,996 more before you have an estate tax issue.
I too won $4. That congratulations you won email sure was a good troll.
I almost woke my family up at 6am over that email
More than I’ve ever won. I’m incredibly lucky in the fact I’ve never won a single lotto ticket in the almost decade I’ve randomly purchased them on a whim. Probably less than $200 over a decade, good for the day dreams though so I ain’t complaining.
Dont you worry about the estate tax. Let me worry about blank!
That'll be tree-fiddy.
I also won $4. I played my fortune cookie numbers. Granted, I spent $12 to get that $4. Sadly my Chinese food wasn’t good. I was robbed.
Why is it always delayed when it’s over a billion?
Because the number of tickets purchased increases exponentially when the jackpot is over a billion.
What does that have to do with drawing the numbers?
The total number of tickets purchased is referred to as the "pool" and people in 46 different states and various time zones can purchase tickets up to an hour before the drawing. All the states convene to ensure pools are closed and all the sales numbers are balanced *before* the drawing to make sure it's fair. Sometimes, especially when ticket purchases are through the roof, one of the states can take a little longer to double-check their numbers, report their numbers, or run into a technical glitch in the process. This can happen with any drawing, but when all eyes are on the drawings at over $1B, you really don't want to be the state that screwed up the results. It's better to delay the drawing for security. Unfortunately, this doesn't stop every conspiracy-brained person from screaming "rigged!" because they can't comprehend the idea of a genuine logistical issue.
Of course, first thing I heard this morning from the pool of co-workers that bought tickets was “rigged”
It IS rigged. They designed the chances to be incredibly small with a severely negative EV. It’s most definitely rigged, just not the drawing itself.
I saw the math last time these jackpots got huge and they *do* eventually become slightly +EV, I think somewhere around the 700 million mark. There are ~300million possible Powerball combinations, but after factoring in the odds of a split, taxes, etc.
They don’t though, because the odds of 2+ people splitting the pot also increases. ETA: good edit, lol
It increases even more when the first 5 numbers are below 31. Because of birthdays.
oh ok thanks
There have been a number of billion dollar jackpots and most of them don't get split. In fact, of the 10 largest, all over 1 billion, all but one was to a single winner with one being split three ways.
It’s higher with Taxes and the payout cut. When it gets this high it’s arguably +EV to buy one ticket, but there’s still the chance that two people win
That does not mean it is rigged..
I view it as a voluntary tax.
I view it as government-run gambling...and since I don't have an opinion on gambling I don't really give a shit.
I used to not give a shit about gambling when it was relegated to just physical casino buildings and lotteries but now that gambling is literally everywhere and in everything I believe it is a scourge on society.
My friend calls it "The Idiot Tax"
Same in my family
It’s actually called poverty tax, because a lot of people who are extremely poor do buy lottery ticket
Poor people account for the majority of lotto purchases I'd imagine
That's not what rigged means in gambling. It's not rigged. It's mind boggling to me how people can upvote this dumb shit.
Perhaps because we aren't using it as a term of art. Words can have multiple meanings, context is key, that's the nuance of the post.
What is EV?
Expected Value. It can get complicated, but it's basically (your win probability * the net prize) + (your lose probability * net ticket cost) Assume a charity raffle with 10 total tickets. Tickets cost $1 and the prize is $8 (with $2 being donated to the charity or whatever) Your EV is (1/10 * 7) - (9/10 * -1) (.7) + (-.9) -.20 In other words, buying a $1 ticket would expect you to lose $.20
Thank you!
So lizards check the numbers and make sure they pick a number not bought, but sometimes they mess up, because lizards don’t really know what numbers are, got it.
Shoulda brought in a lizard wizard. They know their numbers, and have cute little octarine hats.
The guy presiding over the lottery should be the King Gizzard
Lottery insurance. Not a bad idea Gecko.
This is the US government. Stay where you are. \*licks eyeball*
According to the psychos I get my news and facts from, there are Jewish space lasers involved somehow as well.
How dare you use facts and logic on here. We need convoluted conspiracy theories not this rationale bullshit you're spewing /s.
If I didn’t win … it is obviously rigged . ———-Trump
My understanding is one of the states hadn’t yet verified/reported their numbers. So the set of numbers that had been chosen by players wasn’t “final”. My take is they have some silly system where until that happens someone could add a new ticket to the list. So if you draw the numbers before that, someone could side-channel the numbers and cheat by adding their own ticket with the numbers after the draw but before the finalization. I have no inside knowledge, so this is my best guess.
It’s just a big excel file.
Copy of Lottery\_Final!\_(2).xlsx
Lottery_Final!_(2)copy copy.xlsx
This is the answer.
There's [an episode of of a cyber security podcast](https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/101/) where the host interviews someone who did an engagement with a major lottery organization in Puerto Rico. He goes into detail about the pretty extreme security measures they take (and how even they weren't good enough to prevent a fraud). I'd have to imagine (hope) that powerball would be operating at least the same or higher level of security. Interesting listen if you want to learn about the inner workings of these types of organizations.
Because the ticket validation takes longer. It has to be done before the drawing
Why isn't it done the instant they're purchased?
It is. But the number of tickets purchased increases exponentially when the jackpot is over a billion.
But why male models?
Are you serious? I just told you that a moment ago.
When will you wear wigs?
Because the ticket validation takes longer. It has to be done before the drawing
Why does there need to be ticket validation before drawing? Never mind there’s an explanation below… it makes sense but also…. It makes sense people here are feeling skeptical and emotional because no one here has claimed the jackpot. But also I didn’t even play lol. I don’t get out of bed until 1.5 billion! SoI’m not complaining.
I've never seen an "exact" explanation. Several of the articles about the delay did make reference to "fairness of the drawing." What I'd suspect is that they want to "lock in" every area's reporting of their sales and ticket numbers they sold before the drawing starts. No mis-counts, discrepancies to be resolved after the fact, etc. So that Tennessee isn't constantly like *"Oh hey guise, we found another 1000 tickets after you did your little drawing thing, and one of them had the winning number! Again! I know!!"*
That was a disturbing flash-forward of Election Night 2024.
As the Powerball folks put it diplomatically / pr-speak in the article: >This is done to ensure that every ticket sold for the Powerball drawing has been accounted for and has an equal chance to win. What it really means: So someone can't manipulate a computer at one of the state lottery headquarters to sneak in the winning number after it is drawn. Normal nights states cut the sales off 1 or 2 hours before the drawing time in order to let their computers catch up and account for all the numbers sold in that state.
All tickets have to be pre authorized by two computers and one of the jurisdictions was still authorizing that’s why there was a delay.
They explained that in the article we're here to discuss. It's a short article.
They need to run them all through the simulator to see if they have to pull a winner or if they can sneak in another draw
Cause it's all a scam, dude.
That’s wild lmao. $10 million would be the most money I’d ever need for the rest of my life. So long as it’s a $10 million draw or more my opinion doesn’t change whether it’s 10 million or 1 billion. I’d just give away more over the 10 million.
Participating states have to complete particular procedures legally. “Powerball game rules require that every single ticket sold nationwide be checked and verified against two different computer systems before the winning numbers are drawn,” the statement said. “This is done to ensure that every ticket sold for the Powerball drawing has been accounted for and has an equal chance to win. Tonight, we have one jurisdiction that needs extra time to complete that pre-draw process.””
It's because they pulled my number and had to redraw.
You joke but I watched a doc about how the lotteries work and apparently they will do test draws to make sure the machine works and the videos recording properly etc. So imagine how many peoples numbers were drawn but they were test runs so they didn't count.
There's actually a dude suing them right now for this, in his case they accidentally posted the test ticket winner to the website and it was his numbers, dude spent a few hours thinking he won [NPR Article ](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/21/1232773305/powerball-lottery-mistake-lawsuit#:~:text=Gaming-,Man%20sues%20Powerball%20lottery%20after%20%24340M%20'win'%20is%20denied,.%22%20Now%2C%20he's%20suing.)
I hope he didn't quit his job in those few hours 😂
It wasn’t just a few hour mistake. His numbers were up on the website for 3 days straight. Which is more than enough time to make some drastic life decisions
My numbers every time I bet.
I think it’s smart to know every number sold before the drawing. If they didn’t verify all numbers that have been sold, then someone could easily insert the winning number into the system as sold after the draw.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Are you really saying that with a billion dollars on the line no one is going to figure out how to manipulate a printer? Even with multiple redundant record keeping systems, people have hacked tickets for much smaller payouts such as with horse racing and remote betting stations.
I was having this similar discussion trying to explain this to someone recently. They're handing over a billion dollars, they're gonna want a little more evidence than a slip of thermal paper from a gas station
Yeah, the system also records the numbers chosen, but that needs to be held conclusively in multiple locations to limit the chance of altering numbers after the drawing. The story of hacking horse races is actually really fascinating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Breeders'_Cup_betting_scandal
That was a great read thanks!
Well yeah, you don't fuck with the biggest fish. It attracts too much attention.
That’s a great point. Since it’s a paper ticket you are redeeming, I’m guessing they’d be afraid of someone counterfeiting a winning ticket. Tickets don’t seem that hard to manipulate, unless they have better security like currency to determine a valid ticket. I’m assuming they don’t have that security feature if this is their current process.
Considering they know exactly what store sold the ticket immediately on drawing it just not the ticket. Stores get a % of the winnings for selling a winning ticket.
That is a product of the current system of reporting all sold tickets before the drawing. Each location reports into the lottery system what tickets they have sold, and that’s why they are able to be identified by the winning ticket.
So it sounds like the delay is well justified.
They also check cameras to make sure the person claiming bought the ticket.
I think that happened with Lotto Max in quebec? Like 10 years ago. The guy bought two tickets right near the cutoff time and one was in the time and the other one wasn't. When the winning numbers were drawn he thought he won but it turns out that it was seconds over the cutoff. So literally if the tickets have been printed in the opposite order he would have won. I'm also just saying this for memory, I'm not sure on the specific details, maybe I never even happened?
Pretty sure all lotteries do this, but they manage to do so without delay, lmao
Sure but this becomes the biggest lottery in the world in ticket sales when the jackpot gets over 1B. The logistics get a little harder
Agreed, but I have to imagine with a jackpot this big, there are a ton more players than the usual lotteries. Which is why there seem to only be delays to verify all tickets in play with the very big jackpots.
The contrarian opinion isn't always the smart one my friend.
I think the entire process is simply you have to cut off ticket sales and then have enough delay to register all the sales before drawing. Any lottery can do this simply by cutting off sales earlier. So yes, any lottery can get this done by saying simply "sales through saturday, we draw sunday noon". Powerball doesn't seem to think that cutting off sales earlier for every drawing is better than drawing later for the few which have a lot of tickets sold. And they're probably right.
Winning jackpot ticket was in Portland, Oregon for anyone wondering
It’s like finding out tomorrow definitely won’t be a snow day and you still have to go to school.
I didn't know there where powerball conspiracies until now
It’s 2024. There’s conspiracies about what you had for breakfast now.
But I didn’t have breakfast? Oh shit
That’s what they want you to think!
I heard you had breakfast with Elvis and 👽 at CERN and are going to be there for the demon portal that they open durning the eclipse. Also that you slept with Bigfoot.
Big grape jelly has operatives in every breakfast restaurant in America stealing the strawberry jelly packets.
[удалено]
I don’t jelly my dick down your mom’s throat.
The best conspiracy ever is that the lottery was set up retroactively as a way to catch time travelers. Lol
That’s actually, like, a cool conspiracy.
When it's a big California winner, the conspiracies get really spicy.
Same, and they seem to be weirdly popular on this sub by the amount of top comments mentioning some sort of conspiracy.
Wait you still believe powerball exists?
Soooo…what are y’all doing with the $600M cash payout?
2 chicks at the same time
You only need a million for that. With 600 times that much you could have *1200* chicks at the same time.
Yeah but I need to save room for hot wings.
More like 10k
Well let’s not get carried away.
now you can pay someone to carry you away
Lmao this chump here scraping bottom of the barrel for the 10k prositutes. If she doesn't charge at least 200k, she's not putting her dick in me.
more like 100 bucks in questionable places 😂
Fuckin’ A
In my state you have to release your name and photos so...probably getting murdered
This is enough of a deterrent for me surprisingly. I know it's stupid as fuck but every time I think about winning the lottery, I just think about how I can win and get my family and me away from anyone.
In the states where you can't claim anonymously, you can hire a lawyer to claim for you through some double trust fund setup. I think it was called a blind trust, like one trust claims through a lawyer and pays out to another trust that you are in control of. I'm not clear on the details because I only looked it up superficially, but if you look on lotto sites you see large prizes claimed in the name of trusts and a lawyer is in the picture holding that big check. You just have to choose a reputable lawyer, and apparently that it can be stupid expensive to do this. A drop in the ocean of what you'd receive still, of course.
taking an ambulance to the hospital after my heart attack from winning instead of an uber!
Buncha hookers and cocaine
Hookers n Blow
I'm taking the annuity. A shockingly high number of lottery winners go broke -- I'd rather have 30 years of income than a single lump sum that I have to invest and constantly worry about whether or not I'll get a return or if the market will crash.
Seeing many "rigged" comments on FB was quite something.
Everything looks like a conspiracy when you don’t understand how things work.
Love this line
About 10 years ago the odds were reduced from something like 1 in 125 million to 1 in 250 million. I played the lotto the first time it hit a billion, won 1 dollar, never claimed it and never played it again.
The odds being so long is why the jackpot gets to be so big.
Wel with inflation being what it is, they better increase that amount /s
Didn’t this happen when it hit $2b as well?
I fucking hate those three digit signs. They've been obsolete for quite a long time already.
I agree but it has to be quite costly to replace it in every grocery store, corner mart, liquor store, and every place in between in 46 states. So 999 it is.
I've seen new ones where the millions/billions is also in lights, so it was 1.23 billion instead of 999 million. But really, does it matter? Is anyone not buying a ticket once it hits 1 billion because it isn't higher?
I was a kid when they had to update the mechanics of gas pumps to display prices over one dollar. That must have been a hell of an undertaking. And now some states are prepping for prices over ten….
Can they do BIL ? Billion bitches, come buy some
The Hot Lotto fraud scandal was a lottery-rigging scandal in the United States. It came to light in 2017, after Eddie Raymond Tipton, the former information security director of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), confessed to rigging a random number generator that he and two others used in multiple cases of fraud against state lotteries. PS: unless I win, it must be a fraud.
Well, I didn't win again.
You’ll win the next one I can just feel it!
I have always thought someone could write a great novel or screenplay about these big lotteries being used to fund political candidates!
Incoming conspiracy theory that this sort of touches on…a majority of the instances that the powerball/mega millions gets up to a specific dollar value, no one actually wins (a “winner” is drawn but no one actually wins) and the funds go to fuel the military or war in other countries.
Remember: you're never playing for the money. You're playing for the dream and hope that it provides.
And if you never check your ticket to see if you've won, you'll always be a billionaire in your heart
Remember: You're never playing for the dream and hope that it provides. You're playing for the bullying, begging, and harassment from family and friends, stalking and strong-arming attempts from strangers, theft attempts, and substance abuse problems.
Level 9999 cope
Did this not happen the last time the jackpot was over one billion?
It did, because some states have been accused of rigging stuff
Beep bop boop... All printed numbers verified and not selected... Fk u all... Sincerely, Powerball overlord....
Had to delay so their specific number wins.
Whose? Lotto employees and their families can't win by law.
thats pretty interesting, In my country they specifically say lotto employees can enter - as a way of showing/proving how secure their systems are. (i.e they are so fair, that even employees are able to play fairly) That said, after about 30 million they start making it a "guaranteed win" - where the jackpot is divided by the next division down.
Can their friends win?
explain how they fake the drawing
Dude in Iowa did this with some of the lesser followed lotteries where the number was chosen by an algo instead of the bouncing balls. Exploited a loophole in the code to make it run in a test mode in on certain day that guaranteed one of something like 17 combinations would be the winner. Used others to claim the prizes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Lotto_fraud_scandal
What shit bags and how convenient they put everything in their mom's name to pay only $1,200 of the $2.3M they owe.
Brother you do realize the scandal of the person in charge of the lottery numbers giving out winning numbers to family and friends for a while. They definitely can win and have won more than a few times.
How would a delay help them do this? They would have just fudged the number and not drawn attention to it
I always feel like a rich person just goes and buys a $1000 worth of tickets and wins it when it hits a billion ha
The crazy part is - the person with 1 ticket and the person with 500 tickets, BOTH have such a tiny tiny tiny percentage of winning - smaller than the human brain can comprehend. So while one does have almost 500x better odds at the same time they are both grains of sand on the beach. Rich folks play $25 slots too, both are a bad idea at anyscale - if you're going to play either you should play the least possible to scratch the itch - At the odds of the lottery, you're really buying the mental 'right' to think about what'd you do with the money more so than a 'real' chance of winning.
It’s nice to have a little hope sometimes
They have the same odds to win as everyone else. A popular IG person bought 250k a while back when the jackpot was huge and won peanuts back.
My Econ professor used to call the lottery the “stupid person tax” the odds so low and most of the money goes to the government. It’s just a tax on the people dumb enough to play.
And there just so happens to be a winner…..
Is it statistically surprising to you that with a lot more tickets being sold that there was a winner?
1 in 300 million and the us adult population is about 260 million. I know not every adult buys tickets but those who do tend to buy multiple.
Watch it be DJT. Lmao
In Southern California again?
Looks like Oregon
One of the most populated regions of the US? No way! California is actually #10 on the list of most wins by state even though they have the highest population.
You really need to do your research before you just start spouting BS conspiracy theories. Take a guess which state has the most Powerball winners. Hint: It's not California. It's Indiana. [https://www.powerball.net/winners](https://www.powerball.net/winners) California isn't even in the top 5.
I always tell people what I’d do with the winnings, only problem is I’ve never bought a ticket so I guess that won’t be me…
What's the point in "players in Oregon, with few exceptions, cannot remain anonymous" ? It's like a mandatory death mark on your back. Also, who after winning anything above $10 mill, let alone $100 mill with such laws in place, going to NOT move to another city, NOT change their name and NOT get a completely new face reconstruction so they can live in peace?
Is it just me, or does it always seem like the winning tickets are in Oregon ?
I’m from Oregon. No way. Feels like the winners are always from the east coast.
It's all recorded [here](https://www.powerball.net/winners).
So, I should definitely move to Indiana for a higher chance of winning a future jackpot.
Yes, that is precisely how odds work!
i won because i did not play.
You didn’t win, you just didn’t lose
The Powers That Be didn't want one of THOSE people from winning.
I doubt the system is not secure. There is too much tax money at risk for them to allow the perception of it not being fair.