Powerball Change

Today, I visited the BP gas station where I buy my weekly $40 worth of MegaMillions and Powerball tickets. I play $10 random pick on each of the 2 dates for each of the 2 games. $40 a week won't kill the bank account and gives me enough of a shot at my wild and crazy dream of winning the big jackpot. I doubt spending more than that would improve me chances of winning much.

I found out to my surprise that they changed the Powerball game slightly. Now, each chance will cost you $2 vice $1. The change will supposedly enable them to have bigger jackpots (which means they'll make even more money off the game) and supposedly better odds. I looked at the new odds and, they're now on par with the MegaMillions game. Before, the odds on Powerball were the worst of the multi-state games with you having to hit the 1 in 179 MILLION to win the jackpot. Now, it's down to 1 in 175 MILLION. Pardon me but, I'm not impressed. The odds still seem to be totally ridiculous. I do wonder if the Powerball game is trying to give some competition to the MegaMillions game because of the equal odds between the 2 games and, you can win a lot more money in the Powerball game - example: if you hit the 5 balls in the MegaMillions game, you win $250,000. If you hit the 5 balls in the Powerball game, you win 1 MILLION! So, for an extra $1, you can win 4 TIMES the money. You can guess which game I'd recommend you play though I wouldn't encourage you to play it a lot considering you still have beat odds that are out of the universe to win.

That's my little update on the Powerball change. Good luck to all of you that are playing. If I can't win the big one, I hope you do. Cheers all!