Powerball’s massive jackpot will rollover and increase after Saturday’s drawing produced no winning tickets, according to the game’s website.
The $1.4-billion jackpot now grows to $1.55 billion but remains the third-largest in Powerball’s history (the second largest was $1.586 billion in 2016).
The last time someone won the Powerball jackpot after the July 19 drawing for the $1.08 billion pot. The winning ticket then was sold in California.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I find the lottery fun in moderation, but I only spend like $50 on lottery tickets a year so I’m not exactly the target audience anyway.
The lottery is by and far an excessive tax on the poor. That’s my only problem with it.
Generally the big culprit there is the scratch-off stuff you see at gas stations.
Powerball, due to the delays in reward processing, is not as “addictive” as scratch-off/peel-off gambling.
True, but I just don’t think we should incentivize funding amazing programs with money sources primarily funded by the underprivileged day dreaming of a better life. It just seems sad.
Hardcore “I’m 14 and this is deep”
Unfortunately for your world views, no. I’m 28 and able to engage in empathy for the plight of my fellow man. Sad you’ve gotten that used to callous realities.
Imagine if everyone just decided they were tired of this lottery bullshit and collectively refused to play…
Personally I’d be far more interested in the lottery if we lived in a post scarcity society, where people’s needs are guaranteed to be met instead of the poorest people desperately trying to get out of poverty
General Strikes are impossible.
Didn’t they add another number to the Powerball which massively decreased the probability of winning?
Yup, all so that they could regularly have these massive jackpots, because a huge jackpot drives more sales of losing tickets.
That makes so much sense. I swear I remember a massive jackpot being a once every 1-2 year event. Now it’s every 1-2 months.
And it works. I played during the last huge jackpot craze. I even thought to myself that I swore there weren’t this many numbers.
Just split it among all of us already. I could use a half cup of coffee.
Wow. A crazy jackpot.
Not really, they added an extra number to the lottery so that people would be even less likely to win, which leads to larger jackpot numbers. It’s a marketing ploy meant to trick more people into paying the stupid tax.
Doesn’t a lot of the money go to scholarship funds?
Depends on the state. My state puts 40% of the funds into protecting the environment and the rest goes into the state’s general fund.
Jackpots are just another poor people tax.
Who cares
“chance to be a billionaire” “Who cares”
Is there something I’m missing
Yeah the “chance” part.
Except he mentioned the chance part.
It’s called a lottery, I think it’s generally understood that not everybody wins.
Expected return calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expected_return there are likely better “bets” you can make. On top of that, even if the expected return is good, you have to take into account the Kelly Criterion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion which limits how much of your bankroll you want to spend on a longshot, and if that’s less than the cost of a single ticket, buying tickets is more likely to bankrupt you than for you to win.
After taxes you’d still come out less than a billionaire. But if a measley rich as fuck is good enough… He’ll I’ll probably kick a couple of bucks into the pot for the next drawing.
They’re referring to how the lottery is a tax on poor people. The states/etc use large portions of funding from it to do good things, but it shouldn’t be a revenue stream for states because a majority of participants live at or below the US poverty line.
It is not a tax. Taxes are not voluntary.If you are old enough to buy a ticket you are old enough to judge the risk of buying in. That responsibility lies solely on the participant. And right or wrong it’s the biggest blessing schools in the South have ever seen. You can be mad, but don’t buy a ticket if you are.
I’m not mad, but you’re judging something that factually has potential to be addictive depending on the person, and that has been shown to be abusive to those in poverty (because again, that’s the main participants, people underprivileged day dreaming for a way out) as good just because it funds education and some otherwise very good things. We can run a lottery without incentivizing the funding to come from the underprivileged, and fund education, and should expect our government to do both.
Yeah, intelligence I guess idk have fun with the idiot tax err I mean lotto
I mean, if someone spends $2 once in a while for the fun and daydreaming, it’s not really an idiot tax. I’ll probably buy a single ticket.
For real. I buy a ticket occasionally just because it’s fun to think about what I’d do with the money for the few days before the draw. Worth the $2 in entertainment value. I’ll occasionally win $10 or something, which is a bonus. I fail to see the issue with people spending an inconsequential amount of money for funsies.
It’s the people who spend hundreds on lottery tickets that are the problem. Even then, people with gambling problems aren’t idiots, they’re desperate people who are being taken advantage of by the gaming industry.
(The latter constituting the majority of lotto income)
You’re not wrong. There’s serious issues with the gambling industry that need to be dealt with, as well as outside social problems driving people to it.
That doesn’t mean the whole concept of a lottery needs to be thrown out, or that anyone who participates is an idiot.
And I wholeheartedly disagree, which is my right as a unique individual with my own opinions.
Edit: cope harder, downvoters.
Got any sources on that?
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I completely agree.
But most lotto ticket purchasers aren’t just buying them “here and there”.
Try working a job that sells lotto tickets, then you’ll understand. It’s fucking sad as hell. More people than you would ever assume are pinning thier entire hopes and dreams on making it big without doing anything to earn it, while throwing away the present completely, along with any real chance of being content within thier means.
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When someone calls it an idiot tax they mean the actual $2 tickets themselves, not the winnings.
Me.
I wish you best of luck on your shortcut to success
Everyone that skipped the half lesson on probability given in public high school.
I like how you’ve chosen to denigrate both the losers who are purchasing it, and the education system at the same time. I can’t speak for anyone else but I certainly got enough statistics in high school to know full well… your statement implies you did too so where is this Rarity you speak of if both of us have gotten it?
Uh OK… So read this part again “Everyone that skipped”…
Yes I get that you drew a silky thin line between choice and availability, my point is the premise of your argument is invalid. Everybody knows you’ve got very little chance of winning the lottery with or without a high school statistics class…
Smart guy
