Re: Probability of no one hitting the Powerball tonight?
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I have not done the math but I know it is around. It says on one site the odds of matching all 5 white and the powerball are 147,000,000+
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I noticed this. Since the lump sum value of the $340mm is $164.4 mm (add another 15% for lesser prizes), and you get the value of the pool to be just shy of $200 mm. So, ignoring taxes and the possibility of multiple winners (which is like ignoring a 500 lb gorilla), it looks like a +ev pool.
For the Original question -- Given 146.1 million possible combinations (source powerball site), and assuming purchasers randomly choose combinations (another big assumption), it's not too difficult to determine how many tickets have to be sold in order for there to be a 50/50 shot of a winner or any other percentage for that matter. Alternatively, if can find out how many tix are sold, it's easy to determine the odds of there being a winner.
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