The Dream
The Powerball jackpot is up past $1.3 Billion and continuing to rise! Most of us dream about what we would do with a "normal" jackpot win .... but $1.3 billion! Can you even imagine what you would do with that much money. If you are the only winner, you become an instant billionaire....well kind of.
The Odds
I am sure I am going to buy some more tickets during this frenzy because "you can't win if you don't buy a ticket!" That is what they tell us, but realistically you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning (1 in 960,000) than winning the lottery (1 in 292,000,000). You must have heard this 10 times by now... I know I have!
Why Are These Jackpots Getting So Big?
Not long ago, the white ball numbers were increased from 59 to 69 and the red balls were reduced from 35 to 26. This made the odds go up from 175 million to 292 million increasing the chance that the jackpot would roll over.
What Is The Downside?
We are clouded by "The Dream" and don't think of any downside to winning over a billion dollars.
Let's just say for fun you beat those 292 million odds... think of how your whole life is going to change.
- You are going to have to get a bunch of lawyers and accountants to manage all that money.
- How are you going to like to go into hiding? You do realize that is a possibility. Every nut case is going to come out of the woodwork and want a piece of that money. You might even have to change your name.
- Just think of all the decisions you are going to have to make! Yikes! What kind of new car are you going to get. What about a new home? My gosh, now you can live anywhere, are you going to buy a second home (if you do can I recommend one in Sedona for you) ;-)!
- And then there is the travel....all that jet lag traveling all over the world and of course you are going to have to have an entourage and someone to "handle" you. ... to make sure you don't give the poparazzi some new gossip story!
So... do you still want to win a billion bucks?
If you say yes, at least let the computer do it for you. Jackpots are won about 75% of the time when the computer picks the numbers. Don't pick just birthdays because that limits your numbers to 1-31 and you probably won't win with just those numbers ...but what do I know, I am off to the market to get some more lottery tickets! Good Luck!
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