How to boost your chances of winning the £1billion Powerball jackpot revealed
BUY a mansion, quit your job or sail around the world in a yacht… how would you spend a slice of £1billion?
It may seem like a pipe dream but it could soon be your reality as the National Lottery is launching a UK Powerball in a matter of days.
Customers can buy tickets onTuesday, July 21 and the first draw will be completed just two days later on Thursday, July 23. The game will cost £4 a line to compete.
It will give Brits the chance to compete with US players for a slice of a £1billion pot.
Players will pick five main numbers ranging from one to 69, and one Powerball number from one to 26, or they can choose a Lucky Dip.
The prize will be paid out over 30 years to UK jackpot winners.
Meanwhile, the UK version will also feature an extra “Match 5 main numbers” tier which will offer a fixed prize of £1million.
There will also be a “Match 2 main numbers” prize tier which offers a fixed prize of £8.
Powerball was founded in 1992 and is the world’s biggest rolling jackpot game, with the prize pot starting at £12million.
In 2022 its biggest-ever winner scooped up a whopping $2.04billion (£1.51billion).
We’ve asked experts if the draw is worth it and how you can boost your chances of bagging the top prize.
Of course, the best way to boost your chances of winning is to buy more tickets – but you should only do this if you can afford to.
Always gamble responsibly and play with money you can afford to lose.
Set yourself a limit before you start playing to avoid getting carried away.
If you need advice, visit gamcare.org.uk or GambleAware.org.
Is the Powerball worth it?
The overall odds of winning any Powerball prize in the UK is one in 14.
In comparison, your odds of winning the National Lottery are currently one in 9.3, although this will increase to one in 4.9 from June.
Meanwhile, there are usually around seven jackpot winners each year across all the current participating states.
But while these may sound like good odds, the Powerball is still not worth playing on average, according to Ben Parker, a senior lecturer in statistics at Brunel University of London.
He said: “Your long term fate is almost surely to lose. In the new Powerball you’ll win less often than the Euromillions or the old fashioned National Lottery, but if you do win you’ll win a bigger amount.”
That’s because as with all National Lottery games, for every £1 you play, 50p goes into the prize pot, while 50p is spent on supporting charities and managing the lottery.
There’s a very faint chance of winning but you are still likely to spend more entering than you will earn in prizes.
If you played the Powerball three times a week for ten years then you would play around 1,500 times.
You would have spent around £6,000 on tickets but on average you will only get £3,000 back, Ben said.
But it’s important to remember that some weeks you’ll win big while others you’ll lose money.
How can you boost your chances of winning?
There is no way to change the chance of your number being called.
The only way you can change your fate is to play a rollover week, which is when last week’s jackpot is carried over to the next week.
According to Ben, the jackpot for Powerball is about 68% of the prize fund, so by the third rollover, on average, you should make more from playing the lottery than you put in.
“Clearly most people will still lose and relatively few people will make money,” Ben explains.
“But mathematically the average win is above 100%, so on average if you play for a very long time, and only when there is a triple rollover or more, then you win.”
As a mathematician, Ben recommends that you should only play the triple rollovers or more.
Even with this advice, you would still need to play for thousands of years to almost guarantee a profit.
Meanwhile, it’s important to randomise your numbers to boost your odds.
How do I know which numbers to pick?
It shouldn’t matter which numbers you choose as every one has an equal chance of winning.
But human psychology is also important to take into account to avoid having to share the top prize.
Most people pick numbers that are relevant to them.
So for lotteries they often pick people’s birthdays, house numbers or the month they were born.
These numbers all tend to be very low, so if you win you’re more likely to be forced to share the jackpot with them.
Ben suggests that you should avoid patterns and choose random numbers.
For example, you could use a random number generator to choose them for you.
Or you could pick numbers from the phone book.
If you need to choose the numbers yourself then avoid low ones.
This content is sourced from www.thesun.co.uk and is shared for informational purposes only.
