No, the odds of winning per $1 wager is 1 in 27,967,632. In other words, if a group of smart players joined together to buy $27,967,632 worth of tickets to cover every possible combination, they would be guaranteed to win the $40 million jackpot along with the other prizes.
However, they may still lose money if somebody else matched the six winning numbers. Therefore, it would be silly to waste $20 or $100 of your own money playing. If you are going to play, you should just put in $2 or your usual lottery budget as part of a POOL. You multiply your chances without wasting too much of your own money.
In the unlikely event that the record jackpot rolls over again on Wednesday, I would be willing to help organize a lottery pool. If we could get 100 people paying for 1-42 tickets each, we would have 100 times better odds than just playing individually. Since most math-literate people realize that any set has the same chance of winning (including 1-2-3-4-5-6) as any other set, I would be willing to let the members choose their numbers and mine.
hojimoe said:
to cover the combininations which are all possible, I believe you do 49^6, which turns out to be : 13841287201 lines of 6/49, which is more than the jackpot is worth lmao!
