Abstract

d               Powerball Lottery: Six Numbers Have Power To Change Your Life

                                                       Abstract

          Powerball is a combined jackpot game with cash rewards. Each Powerball ticket costs $2. Player needs to match six numbers total by picking five white balls out of 59 white balls (numbered 1 to 59) and one red ball out of 35 red balls (numbered 1 to 35). There are nine possible winning ways starting with just matching the red ball number which is called the Powerball. Prizes go from $4 to the Grand prize (currently around $40 million). Players who match all five white balls in any order and the red Powerball win the Grand prize. Applying combination and permutation methods, it is easy to figure out the over all odds of winning a prize are about 3 percent and the possibility of wining the Grand prize is less than 0.000001 percent. In other words, a jackpot winner means millions of losers. Statistically, every number has the same chance of being chosen, so there should be no particular way to win the Powerball lottery. However, after studying the empirical results from those years, some most frequently drawn numbers have been found. In the past 10 years, the most popular red Powerball number is 20 and followed by 37, 2, 31, and 35. For the white balls set, the most common number are 42, 16, 35, 26, and 19.