The jackpot for the MEGA Millions is estimated at 340 Million USD on March 6th. If not the biggest, one of the biggest jackpots ever. Let's look a little closer at this...
Pick five numbers from 1 to 56. Then pick one number from 1 to 46 called the MEGA number. If you get all five correct plus the MEGA, you will win the 340 Million. Your odds are ONLY 175,711,536 to 1.
But here's where my wheels start turning. Rounding off, IF you had 176 Million and you played EVERY number possible you would be guaranteed to win double your money. But wait, that's if nobody else won and you were the sole winner.
Big chance. You're hoping that only one other person will win. Would you be comfortable with a 1 in 4 chance? I mean would you bet 44 Million to win 340 Million?
The rules state that only the largest prize wins on your sheet wins. OK, buy single tickets. Then, for every 46 (mega number is a winner) you get back $1.00 and so forth for each winning number that you select. I think it's $2 for 1 number, $10 for 2 numbers, $50 for 3, etc...so you WILL have many winning tickets PLUS the jackpot.
Only problem is ... where can you print out 176 million tickets? Can you imagine someone walking into a 7-11 and saying "I want to play the entire number range for the MEGA Lottery." Uh. How long would that take, how many rolls of paper, can you use your debit card?. I already know what 500 sheets of paper looks like. How about 176 million little sheets? AND THEN, knowing that you won...FINDING the winning ticket!!!
Can anyone out there let me know where the error in my logic of reducing the odds are? I wonder if someone has played in this fashion before, even pooling their money. To have such a problem, huh? Oh, I bought my one ticket already. :)
Life goes by so fast...need to take a few seconds to write down and remember experiences that make me the person I am.
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