A Record Winning Streak for the Pool - Jackpot Won In Indiana

The pool won $42 tonight. Our sixth straight winning evening - a pool record! With 83 picks submitted we once again got three of the five whiteballs right in one set winning $21 there. Odds of doing that would normally require the purchase of 290 computer pick tickets at a cost of $580. ( Our bill this evening was $166.) Plus we matched the powerball in two other sets - one with a whiteball giving us the rest of our earnings. Combined odds of that are about 1 in 190. So though it wasn't what we'd hoped for we are definitely demonstrating some consistency from drawing to drawing and beating the odds.

Payments and banked balances have been updated to reflect payments for this evenings and the next anticipated drawing. The Powerball website is reporting someone in Indiana got all 6 numbers right so we'll rejoin the drawings when the jackpot reaches $50 million - or close to it - which usually occurs in about 3 weeks assuming the jackpot isn't reset again.

NEWSFLASH! JACKPOT LEAPS TO $300 MILLION! Let's play SATURDAY!

The Powerball website is reporting - relatively early by past standards - that apparently nobody won the jackpot prize which now leaps to $300 million with a cash payout of $140 million! The jackpot is now approaching near record levels and if nobody wins Saturday it will no doubt arrive at that level. The previous record was the $365 million jackpot won by the ConAgra food plant workers in Nebraska.

Due to the unusually large size of the jackpot I will be preparing tickets for the drawing on Saturday. If you are interested in playing with us on Saturday money is due Friday before we leave school - unless you are already paid up.

Banked balances and payments are up to date and represent who is paid (or not) for the next upcoming drawing on SATURDAY!

We Win AGAIN!

For the fifth straight drawing we once again had a winning night! We got back over a third of what we collectively put into the pool by earning $56 tonight on two high-odds number sets. We matched two sets of three whiteball numbers with the odds of doing that by chance on each set being 1 in 290 for overall odds of 2 in 580. That's an awesome performance considering we had 72 chances to win. Tonights earnings represent our highest total in the last 5 Wednesdays we've played!

We blanked on the powerball this evening - which is unusual - otherwise our earnings certainly could have been higher. On THIRTY other number sets - which represents nearly half of our picks - we had one or two whiteballs right. Had we chosen the right powerball and it had joined one of those sets - which it had a one in two shot of doing - then our earnings for each of those sets would have been $12 and $28 respectively. Had it hit our three number whiteball set? Our earnings would have been $400. Still...the powerplay helped this time boosting our $14 play to the $56 level since it was 4x.

Thanks for your continued support and keep dreaming! John

Nobody Jackpots Saturday!

The jackpot is now reaching tantalizing levels as it hits $245 million for this upcoming Wednesday night's draw. This jackpot is now the third highest in Powerball history and is only $10 million away from being the second highest powerball jackpot. In January 2007 the Wilson family of Missouri won $254,000,000 and in February of 2006 the Nebraska meat packers group won the standing record of $365,000,000.

All payments - banked and otherwise - are up to date as of this weekend.

Good luck to us all! John

Fourth Straight Win!

No, we can't quit our jobs yet, but the pool strutted its winning ways once again with three successful pick sets that odds say had a combined chance of one in about 450 chance of occurring! Not bad considering we had a total of 60 picks this evening. We won $28 total and once again, would have scored significantly more had the multiplier not been a wimpy 2x. Those wins came across three diverse pick sets. One powerball with one white ball, one powerball alone and then three white ball numbers picked correctly together. (Odds of doing that alone are 1 in 290! )

So clearly the spreadsheet is doing a particularly good job of picking numbers and with each successful drawing - allowing us a greater pool of number pick sets - which, in turn increases our odds of getting a correct number set right, earning us more money for the next draw and more pick sets. You get the picture. (I hope!) In the event that we have a weird drawing where the spreadsheet totally misses (and we know those days happen) I'm not blowing all our extra dough on one drawing - giving us another chance to win with a more "predictable" set of numbers.

Banked balances and payments have been adjusted to reflect the next anticipated drawing date on the 22nd of August. If nobody wins the jackpot this evening or Saturday? The jackpot should be well over $200 million! Cross your fingers! John

P.S. I appreciate the vote of confidence in my accounting abilities by your participation in the present drawing. I also received no "Boy...aren't you a math screw up!" comments as a result of the hiccup with the banked totals I described in an earlier post. Thanks.

Jackpot Stretches for Record Numbers

The jackpot approaches the $200 million mark with nobody winning the Big One on Saturday. The pool is in for this Wednesday's draws. Banked balances and payments should be up to date. Good luck to us all! John

Record Winning Streak Continues!

Too bad the multiplier wasn't what it's been in the previous two drawings otherwise we would have won close to $100 tonight - but instead we won $26 because of the wimpy 2x multiplier. However, we had FOUR winning number pick sets - which again cleanly beat the odds if we'd randomly chosen numbers. And congratulations to the pool! We just busted the $1,000 in total winnings over the life of our group. Of course we have nothing to show for it but a heckuva lot of extra number picks buy hey, when we're millionaires in the future? It will be all worth it, right?

Sometimes Math Just STINKS!

I'm not sure whether the spreadsheet just didn't save my previous updates or what - but I found the posted member balance were again out of whack. Fortunately, I was able to reconstruct the record based on my most recent notes from when banked balances were posted (to the far right of your name) and the blog record of when we participated in the draw - then subtract the proper dues to get the ending balance.

For those who think Ole' John might be running a scam here and pocketing the difference - here's the the math involved. We'll use Mrs. Higgins as an example. You'll see that I noted that she banked $35 on June 13th. Since that time we've participated in 7 drawings in that amount of time (including this evening's drawing) and the blog below documents those dates: 6-13, 6-20, 6-27, 7-18, 7-25, 8-1, and 8-8. The previous bank showed Mrs. Higgins had a balance of $5 - which is incorrect - because 7 drawings x $5 a draw is $35 - so all her banked funds were used up as of this evening. To correct the error in the overall balance I went through and deducted another $2 or $5 from everyone's individual balance. Now we are squared away.

Also please note that if you previously had for example a balance of $10 and you were a $5 member - your balance is now zero because I deducted the missing draw AND included you in the next upcoming drawing on the 15th (assuming nobody wins the jackpot this evening or Saturday.) So in essence, your bank is zero - but you are PAID for the next drawing.

If you were a $5 member and had a previous balance of $5, your balance is now zero and you DO NOT have funds posted for the next drawing.

Those who paid on a per draw basis were unaffected since they didn't have a balance to show anyway.

Confused? Not surprised. Try doing the juggling of payments for 20+ members every week!

Sorry about that mistake folks - but inevitably errors will crop up which is why I ask that you guys help keep track of your own individual payments. Overall, though - in the past year and a half - I'd say things have been pretty accurate and well documented here. But if you note any errors, EITHER direction in the future - please bring them to my attention!

Thanks, hang in there with us, and cross your fingers! We're on a record winning streak!

We beat the odds again!

As the jackpot approaches towards the $100 million dollar mark, the KW Lottery Pool beat the odds again winning $35 this evening - thanks to the help of the powerplay option quintupling our $7 win. We got the powerball right in one set but then matched two other numbers with it. Doesn't sound like a big deal until you consider the odds of doing that are about 1 in 290! So out of every 290 tickets you'd randomly generate numbers you might get a matching number set like that. We did it with only 48 picks. Not too shabby!

As before, I will take a portion of our combined earnings and continually increase our total number picks as the jackpot rises with each drawing.

We now are only $3 short of a total pool history earnings of $1000!

Be sure and read the post below this one, it contains some information about an accounting error that affected the posted banked balances of members.

Balance Adjustments

I failed to debit banked pool member's accounts for one past drawing, so balances now reflect that difference and adjustment. Because two members previously showed that they would have been paid for this drawing from their final balances and rightfully should be in for this drawing - I paid their dues out of part of the proceeds from our last winning draw.

I apologize for that accounting hiccup. John