If you haven’t won a giant Powerball jackpot yet, here’s bad news: Now you’re really not going to.
The lottery commissioners who run the Powerball just approved a plan to make it WAY harder to win those giant jackpots — from one in 175 million to one in 292 million.
They’re adding 10 more balls to the mix. So now instead of picking five numbers between one and 59, the range is one and 69.
You also have to pick your sixth number as the special Powerball. That used to be between one and 35, now it’s going to be between one and 26.
The result of those changes is that the big jackpot has much worse odds and fewer people will win one, but a lot more people will get smaller prizes like $4 for just getting the Powerball number.
Not surprisingly, both of those changes are designed to make you gamble more. Huge jackpots get the most people buying tickets, so worse odds equal more enormous grand prizes.
When you get a little win like $4, you usually just use it to buy more tickets. The new changes take effect as of Oct. 7.
