Powerball prize invites myths, misconceptions about lottery

DES MOINES, Iowa – With up to $1.4 billion at stake in Wednesday’s Powerball, questions about the drawing seem to be as abundant as the convenience-store kiosks offering tickets for the record-breaking jackpot.

The inquiries include many myths and misconceptions about the winners, the prize money and the system that decides them. A look at some of the most common questions:

Why are all the jackpot winners from certain states?

Officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, a group of state lotteries that oversee Powerball, said this is one of the most frequent complaints.

It’s “human nature to think the other guy is winning,” said Sally Lunsford, public affairs director for the Kansas Lottery.

It’s also wrong, though there are anomalies.

Lottery officials, backed by mathematicians, said probabilities equal out over time, but in shorter periods, oddities can occur, in the same way someone could flip a coin and get heads five times in a row.

The Powerball jackpot overstates the winnings.

There’s more of a rationale behind this claim. The jackpot is the amount paid out over 30 years and not the amount a winner could receive immediately. So while the current jackpot is listed at $1.4 billion, a sole winner would only get that much if the person received 29 annual payments. Winners can also choose the cash prize, which is the total amount currently up for grabs, but that is “only” $868 million.

Gary Grief, executive director of the Texas Lottery, responded that Powerball prominently displays both the annuity and cash prize figures. The bigger number gets more attention, and Grief said lotteries have taken that approach for decades.

The odds of winning the jackpot are worse than in the past.

This is true, as the Multi-State Lottery Commission last fall added more numbers to choose from. The new system changed the odds from 1 in 175 million to 1 in 292.2 million. But far from hiding the change, the organization trumpeted it as part of an effort to build larger jackpots. Without the change, it’s unlikely a jackpot would ever come close to the current $1.4 billion, or $868 million cash prize.

The smaller the jackpot, the better the odds.

This is false. Your odds for each ticket are 1 in 292.2 million regardless of the jackpot size or how many other people play. If you buy more tickets, your odds increase, but they’re still woefully small.

However, it’s true that as jackpots increase, more people typically play the game. And the more tickets that are purchased, the greater the chance that there will be multiple winners.

But this all largely misses the more important fact: The chances of winning are incredibly remote, so it makes little difference whether you’d have to share the money.