Odds better to die falling out of bed than winning Powerball
A recent security glitch caused a delay in the drawing, but officials with the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs Powerball, said such problems are rare and have nothing to do with higher jackpots and increased sales.
A $5 discrepancy in Iowa’s accounting of the number of tickets sold for the May 25 drawing triggered an internal alert, forcing a lockdown of the drawing site and a separate site where drawings are monitored until the discrepancy could be resolved. The delay came in getting a security officer to the monitoring site, which in turn delayed the nationwide drawing by 42 minutes.
Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Multi-State Lottery Association, said higher ticket sales and bigger jackpots don’t raise the risk of security problems on drawing nights.
He said it takes no longer to resolve problems when the jackpot reaches $200 million than it does when the jackpot is $10 million.
“The system is set up to handle whatever amount comes in in sales,” Strutt said.
He said security is a top priority for the game.
“It’s all about maintaining the integrity of Powerball,” he said.
Powerball grew out of the Lotto America game, which started in 1987 in seven states. It evolved into Powerball in 1992 and, since then, more states have been added — 27 plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Tennessee Lottery joined with Powerball last year.
Jackpots have gone through the roof, pushing yearly ticket sales into the billions of dollars.
Gerald Aubin, executive director of the Rhode Island Lottery, said the increased sales driven by higher jackpots place a larger burden on retailers.
“That’s when they feel it,” Aubin said. “When the jackpot drives that amount, all of sudden they are bringing a tremendous amount of people into their stores.”
Ticket sales end at 8 p.m. on drawing nights — Wednesdays and Saturdays. Lottery officials in each state where Powerball is played communicate via a closed computer network to confirm transactions.
If a problem is found, the internal alert system is activated and lottery officials work to resolve the problem, Strutt said.
Wayne Lemons, director of the Delaware Lottery, said everything is done to keep the system secure.
“You do everything humanly possible to prevent any type of compromise to the system. I think we’ve done everything that’s humanly possible,” Lemons said.
Despite higher ticket sales that accompany the big prizes, the overall sale of Powerball tickets has slumped in the past two years from $2.3 billion in sales in fiscal 2003 to a projected $1.9 billion this year.
The slump prompted changes that will take effect later this summer designed to increase jackpots — and hopefully ticket sales.
Starting Aug. 29, the starting jackpot will increase from $10 million to $15 million. Two balls will be added to the current pool of 53 white balls from which the first five numbers are drawn, meaning players will have to select five numbers between one and 55. The number of red balls from which the Powerball is drawn, 42, will not change.
The larger number of white balls will decrease the chances of winning the jackpot to 1 in 146.1 million. The current odds are 1 in 120.5 million.
The changes also will double the $100,000 prize for players who match the first five numbers drawn, but miss the Powerball.
The highest Powerball jackpot ever won came on Christmas Day 2002, when Jack Whitaker of Scott Depot, W.Va., won $314.9 million.
Other similar games across the country have had even higher jackpots. The Mega Millions game, played in 11 states, has had jackpots as high as $360 million. California joins the game June 22 and officials say that could push a one-time jackpot for Mega Millions to $500 million.
Lemons said Powerball is treated as a state game in each state where it’s played.
Each state has its own advertising budget for the game and each state spends its lottery proceeds differently. Powerball generates about $2 billion a year, being split evenly between prizes and state coffers.
In some states, such as Tennessee, revenues from Powerball sales are used for college scholarships. In other states, such as Iowa, Rhode Island and Delaware, the money is put into the state’s general fund, where it is spent on items such as prisons, education and transportation.
It often is among the top revenue producers for states. In Rhode Island, for example, it’s the third biggest revenue generator behind personal income tax and sales tax, Aubin said.
Strutt said because of the millions of dollars that are returned each year to the Powerball states, great care is taken to ensure the security of the game.
“You can imagine when there’s this much money involved — raising money for these state purposes that the politicians are very concerned about, great care is going to be taken,” he said.
Odds better to die falling out of bed than winning Powerball
The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 120.5 million.
Statistically, the odds of something odd happening are much greater, according to “The Book of Risks” by Larry Laudan, a former philosophy professor at the University of Hawaii.
For example, the odds are:
—1 in 2 million of being killed falling out of bed or being killed by an animal.
—1 in 350,000 of being electrocuted.
—1 in 250,000 of dying in a plane crash.
—1 in 86,000 of dying from poisoning.
—1 in 5,000 of dying in a car crash.
—1 in 80,000 of dying from complications from surgery.
States where Powerball is played
—Arizona
—Colorado
—Connecticut
—Delaware
—Idaho
—Indiana
—Iowa
—Kansas
—Kentucky
—Louisiana
—Maine
—Minnesota
—Missouri
—Montana
—Nebraska
—New Hampshire
—New Mexico
—North Dakota
—Oregon
—Pennsylvania
—Rhode Island
—South Carolina
—South Dakota
—Tennessee
—Vermont
—U.S. Virgin Islands
—Washington, D.C.
—West Virginia
—Wisconsin
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On the Net: Multi-State Lottery Association: http://www.musl.com/