Powerball lottery jackpot at $1.5B; winning numbers drawing Wednesday

Here are more details about the big lottery payoff.

CHOOSING YOUR NUMBERS

Looking for ideas on how to choose the lucky numbers? Previous winners have recommended letting a computer decide your numbers rather than choosing significant digits based on birthdays or anniversaries. If you play the lottery often, it’s also suggested that you stick with the same combination every time you play. Read more tips from ABC News.

PAYMENT OPTIONS

The prize is based on an annuity, which would pay out the money over 29 years. Or you can take the lump sum cash payment at once, but you’d have to pay the tax.

THE ODDS? NOT GOOD.

The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 : 292,201,338. For some comparison, your chance of being struck by lightning in a year is about one in 960,000. But as lottery officials often note, you have no chance of winning if you don’t buy a ticket.

POOLING YOUR MONEY

Some players feel they increase their odds of winning by pooling their money with co-workers, with a promise to split the winnings. Joining with colleagues and friends can increase the fun of playing, but the odds of winning are so tiny that adding 50 or 100 chances doesn’t matter much. Lottery officials recommend that if people pool their money, they put down rules in writing for splitting the prize, as it’s easy for misunderstandings to crop up when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake.

WLS-TV contributed to this report.

Article Appeared @http://abc7chicago.com/finance/powerball-lottery-jackpot-at-$15b;-winning-numbers-drawing-wednesday/1155977/

 

 

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