UPDATE 10/1/2021: The Powerball® jackpot for Saturday's drawing has just been raised to $635 million!
Have you heard? The Powerball jackpot has rolled again, this time climbing to the 6th-largest prize in the history of the game.
The jackpot for Saturday’s drawing now stands at an estimated $620 million annuity, $446 million lump-sum option. The big prize has been growing for nearly four months. It was last won in early June by a ticket in Florida.
When the jackpot reaches this level, we see two common themes in the questions coming our way: easy picks vs. your own numbers, and office pools.
Easy Pick: Yes or No?
At times like this when the jackpot really gets up there, folks reach out to ask us which has a better shot at winning – easy picks or numbers you choose yourself? The answer: The odds are the same for both. So just make the play that works for you. Here’s the background:
In lotto games like Powerball and Mega Millions®, you have the option of choosing your own numbers or letting the lottery terminal generate the numbers on your ticket. A play containing numbers selected by the lottery terminal is called an easy pick. A play containing numbers you choose is known as a manual play.
Through the years, more and more people have played easy picks because, well, they’re easy. You just ask for a ticket and it’s printed with the numbers in your play already selected. Today, more than 90 percent of the plays in Powerball and Mega Millions are easy picks.
And with easy picks making up more than 90 percent of the tickets purchased, they also make up more than 90 percent of winning tickets in the games. It doesn’t mean that easy picks are luckier, it’s simply that there are a lot more of them.
The odds of winning are the same for every ticket in our games, no matter the play type. So, if you want to choose your own numbers, go ahead and do that. Or, if you’d rather ask for an easy pick, feel free. It won’t impact your odds of winning a prize.
Reminders For Office Pools
This is the point where a lot of folks decide to pool their money to buy tickets with co-workers, neighbors, or friends and family.
We keep reminders about group lottery play as a permanent feature on our website, so please check out those details.
For example, one of our quick tips is for the person buying tickets on behalf of a group to keep a careful list of everyone who pitches in, how much money they contributed, and when! That can help answer any questions later about who was “in.”
$50K Powerball Prize Still Unclaimed
Within the past week, two Iowa tickets were SO CLOSE to winning at least a share of the Powerball jackpot. They each were just one number off, matching four of the five white balls and the Powerball to win a $50,000 prize.
One of those $50,000 prizes is still unclaimed, so double-check your tickets! The $50K-winning ticket was purchased at Git-N-Go, 209 E. Oskaloosa St. in Pella, for the Powerball drawing last Saturday (Sept. 25).
So, so close! :) There's always the next one, right? Thank you for playing, and truly, good luck with your tickets.
Posted by: Mary Neubauer | September 30, 2021 at 04:14 PM
I came close yesterday- only 4 numbers off!
Posted by: IowaReino | September 30, 2021 at 01:33 PM