A regular PowerBall ticket costs $2. $3 with the Power Play option.
Drawings are held on Wednesdays and Saturdays
The Jackpot starts at $40 Million.
If the Jackpot is not awarded, it rises by at least $10 million.
PowerBall consists of 5 white balls and one red ball called the powerball. The jackpot is awarded when all 6 numbers are matched. Even if only one number is matched, a prize is still awarded. The order of the numbers do not matter. A 67 15 66 20 8 5 is equivalent to a 67 8 20 66 15 5.
The PowerBall is not influenced by how many tickets are bought. The probabilty is fixed as there are 69 white balls and 26 red balls.
For an extra dollar, Power Play may be added. This uses a randomly generated number from 2-5 and acts as a multiplier to the payout aside from the jackpot. If the jackpot is worth less than $150 million, a 10x multiplier is used.
PowerBall only: $4
1 White Ball + PowerBall: $4
2 White Balls + PowerBall: $7
3 White Balls: $7
3 White Balls + PowerBall: $100
4 White Balls: $100
4 White Balls + PowerBall: $50,000
5 White Balls: $1,000,000
5 White Balls + PowerBall: Jackpot
Probability of getting a red Power Ball number correct: 1⁄26 = .0384 = 38.4%
Probability of getting a single white ball + a red ball:
# of ways of 1 white ball matching: 5!⁄1!(5-1)! = 5
# of ways of not matching the other 4 white balls: 64!⁄4!(64-1)! = 635,376
# of ways of matching a red ball: 1!⁄1!(1-1)! = 1
635,376 * 5 * 1 = 3,176,880
3,176,880⁄292,201,338 = .01087 or 1.087% chance to win $4
Probability grows much lower with every additional correct white ball
Using $2 tickets, $584,402,676 is required to buy each combination.
Highest PowerBall Jackpot: $1.586 billion
It could be profitable, but hope that the jackpot isn't divided among other players and the tax isn't too large.
The probabilty of having 5 correct white balls and the correct powerball is 1⁄292,201,338 or 0.00000034222%.
If a line of baseballs (2.9in diameter) were lined up from Boston to Los Angeles(2,998.68 highway miles), it would take 65,515,988 baseballs.
The probability of driving along this line and picking up a "winner" baseball at random is 1⁄65,515,988 or 0.000001526%.
Buying a ticket for the jackpot is not worth the money. Buying a ticket for the lower prizes is a little more realistic, but is still not a good investment strategy as there is a 1% chance to win $4.