Winning Tips for the Powerball Lottery

Whenever the jackpot grows into the hundreds of millions, the age-old question starts to become the topic of conversion, "What would you do with all of that money?" Yet little is said about the underlying fact that the chance of winning one of these mega money prizes is astronomically nearly impossible.

The odds of winning the Powerball Jackpot are a staggering one hundred and forty-six million to one. With a 1 in 146,107,962 chance of becoming an instant millionaire, one can only wish it were as easy as getting struck dead by lightning. As data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics cites an average of 105 people are killed each year by lightning, resulting in much better odds of only 2,100,000 to 1.

On the flip side, buying one $1.00 ticket has a 1 in 36.61 chance of winning a prize. Naturally, this prize can range from the $3.00 minimum to well over $300,000,000 depending on how long the prize money has accumulated without a top prize winner.

Powerball, one of America's largest lotteries, is played in 29 States, Washington D.C. and the US Virgin Islands. As of March 2008 the highest recorded Jackpot Prize was won in February of 2006 by a group at the ConAgra Foods ham and corned beef plant in Lincoln, Nebraska where the eight coworkers split the 365 million dollar jackpot.

Powerball tickets can be purchased in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virgin Islands, Vermont, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

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