The Powerball grand prize has now climbed to $900M cash payout. (Listed prize of $1.5B is for payments spread out over 20 years.)
Tickets are $2 each. Odds of winning the top prize are 1 in 292,201,338. Buying one each of every possible ticket would cost $584,402,676, and one of those tickets would be a grand prize winner.
In addition, you would have 25 other tickets which had all the white balls correct but had the wrong red ball. Each of those 25 tickets would give you $2M guaranteed. That $50M would come in handy to tide you over while you're waiting for the check to clear on your grand prize winning ticket.
If there's an increase in the grand prize cash payout of $0.10 for every $1 spent in ticket purchases, you would also be increasing the grand prize cash payout by another $58M. (I'm not going to go deep enough into this to figure out what percentage of ticket purchases goes toward the grand prize pool, but I think my guess of 10% is reasonable.)
You'll also have huge quantities of tickets which win smaller amounts, for which the PowerPlay multiplier becomes REALLY important. For instance, if the PowerPlay multiplier is only 2, you're guaranteed to win $61M more for your nearly 8 million tickets that have only the red Powerball correct. However, if the PowerPlay multiplier is 5, that amount would jump to $153M.
So: check your wallet to see if you've got a spare $600M bill in there. If you do, head down to the convenience store, plop the bill down on the counter and tell them you want a "box" ticket that includes one each of every possible number combination.
Almost forgot the fine print:
If there happen to be, say, 9 other holders of grand prize winning tickets, you're kind of screwed, but you'll only lose maybe $100M or so because you're playing with "other people's money" that was already in the pot prior to your big investment.
And of course, there's no such thing as a box ticket for Powerball. You'll have to fill out a separate slip for each of the 292,201,338 tickets. Hope you don't get writer's cramp, and please, please, don't mess up! I'll really feel bad for you if you accidentally fail to fill out that one winning entry slip! Also, each ticket will have to be printed individually. Not only will it be totally impossible for a single machine to do that before the drawing 20 hours from now, but the people behind you in line will be just a tad irritated.
If it were possible to buy one of every possible number combination, the chances of winning $1.0B for an investment of $0.58B are pretty decent. Therefore, at this point, any money gambled on Powerball is actually a high-risk but good investment, with the odds in your favor. This holds true even if one of the "other people" who previously invested was yourself.
What would the odds be of buying a ticket for every possible number combination except for one, followed by the incredible misfortune of having that single non-purchased combination drawn? The answer, of course, is: exactly the same as if you bought only one ticket and won with it.
What are the odds be of me being dead, in jail, or both, shortly after winning? Pretty darn good. The amount of money is beyond my ability to comprehend and would really mess me up good. I am not so well-grounded that I could hold on to much (or any) of whatever sanity I might still have.
Save that receipt so that you can deduct the amount you spent on tickets against your winnings when the tax man calls!
And for God's sake, don't go getting into an accident or a fight on your way to or from the convenience store. I don't need the guilt of thinking I pushed you into making the trip.
