Powerball lottery: Benefits and drawbacks of office pools

News outlets around the world continue to quote Jeffrey Miecznikowski about tonight’s Powerball drawing:

·         Miecznikowski is quoted in an article on ABC News about the benefits and drawbacks of office pools. “I think Powerball capitalizes on the fact that that number is very hard to comprehend,” he said, noting that getting a winning Powerball ticket is 500 times easier than filling out a winning NCAA March Madness bracket.

·         An article in the Tampa Bay Times about the odds of winning a Powerball jackpot versus other lottery games quotes Miecznikowski, who said the odds of picking the winning six numbers in Powerball are the same as the odds of flipping a coin and getting heads 28 times in a row, and who also calculated the number of coin flips that would be the equivalent of lottery games with smaller jackpots.

·         An article in the Boston Globe looks at duplicate tickets and why they are part of the reason that no one has won the grand prize for 19 consecutive drawings, and quotes Miecznikowski. “It’s very likely to have that percentage of replicates,” he said. “It doesn’t seem that players’ bias in picking numbers has a large effect. I’m not sure picking dates and other things is really as big of a bias as we thought.”

·         He also is quoted in an article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and suggests people put the $2 for a lottery ticket toward a pint of beer instead, although he also noted he might buy a ticket this week at his wife’s urging. “Wouldn’t it be ironic if the guy who’s going around telling everyone not to buy Powerball tickets wins this huge Powerball lottery?” he said.

·         An article on Huffington Post Australia about Australians who are clamoring to get their hands on the U.S. Powerball tickets through third-party lottery-ticket buying companies quotes Miecznikowski, who said the chances of winning are about one in 292 million. And in an article on Australia’s The New Daily, he said lottery hopefuls are about 25 times more likely to become the next U.S. president than to win at Powerball.

Read more:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/powerball-lottery-benefits-drawbacks-office-pools/story?id=36166834

http://www.tampabay.com/news/nation/florida-lottery-games-with-better-odds-than-powerball-8212-and-why-youll/2260955

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/01/13/copycats-more-than-half-powerball-tickets-sold-this-time-will-duplicates/ZIn5u0Cm2KgGZnwWSZ4UBO/story.html

http://www.startribune.com/dreams-defy-odds-as-powerball-pot-grows-to-1-5-billion/365016701/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/01/13/us-powerball-australia-tickets_n_8965228.html

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/01/13/aussies-shot-record-breaking-us-lotto-draw/