Jackpot Has Possibilities

May 25, 2005--As Powerball players consider the growing Powerball jackpot, they may have the traditional luxury daydreams: cars, boats, fancy houses and not a care in the world.

Aside from the actual value of the jackpot, there are other "imponderables" to consider:

Measured in one-dollar bills, $180 million:

--Weighs 396,832 pounds. It would take 198 one-ton trucks to carry all the cash.

--Would line up, end to end, for 17,045 miles, crossing the US almost 6 times.

--Would stack all the way down to the deepest ocean depth – twice. The Challenger Deep is 7 miles deep; a stack of 180 million dollar bills is 14 miles high.

--Would fill up 2,500 boxes of copier paper.

With the jackpot passing $100 million for the first time this year, it’s also interesting to consider what sort of positive change one person could bring about with the money. For example, if one benevolent soul decided to put their money towards charitable causes, they could achieve the following:

At $155 million, a person could:

--Build 586 homes ( U.S. national average purchase price for a single-family home was $264,540 in October 2004)

--Provide 3,413 people with a four-year public university education (the average tuition for undergrads attending four-year public universities including room, board and fees was $11,354 in 2004)

--Provide 6,200 Seeing Eye dogs for the blind. (It costs in excess of $25,000 to breed and train each Seeing Eye Dog)

--Rescue, vet and rehabilitate 620,000 stray cats and dogs (the average cost of rescuing, vetting and rehabilitating was about $250 in 2002)

--Save and preserve 77,500 acres of threatened wild land in the U.S. or Canada (Most threatened wild land in the United States or Canada (up to $2000+/acre) costs 12-150 times more than wild land in the Amazon Basin or Patagonia, (from $6 - $80/acre)

--Provide 103,333 desktop computers to inner-city schools (at a cost of $1,500/computer)

--Provide 31,000,000 homebound seniors with a holiday meal (at a cost of $5/meal – City Meals on Wheels)

The largest Powerball jackpot ever won by a single-ticket holder was $314.9 million by a West Virginia man in 2002 on Christmas Day.

There have been eight Powerball jackpot winners in Nebraska since 1994:

Lyle and Dianne Fleharty of Hastings
$50.1 million, July 30, 1994

Connie Daily of North Platte
$50.5 million (split $101 million with an Indiana winner), November 30, 1994

Donald and Rita Polak of Prague
$8.1 million on April 19, 1995

Greg Klein of Milford
$2.5 million (split $5 million with an Indiana winner), April 24, 1996

Richard and Iris Johnson of Ayr
$18.5 million (cash option on $33 million), November 28, 1998

Marilyn and Charles Anderson of North Platte
$2.54 million (cash option on $10 million split with a Kentucky winner), November 3, 1999

Shirley Brewer of Omaha
$7.5 million (cash option on $14 million), August 26, 2000

Steven Herber of Omaha
$5.6 million (cash option on 1/3 share of $30 million, also won in Arizona and Pennsylvania), December 22, 2004

Powerball is now offered by 29 lotteries, including: the Arizona Lottery, Colorado Lottery, Connecticut Lottery Corporation, Washington D.C. Lottery & Charitable Games, Delaware State Lottery, Idaho Lottery, Indiana (Hoosier) Lottery, Iowa Lottery, Kansas Lottery, Kentucky Lottery Corporation, Louisiana lottery Corporation, Maine State Lottery, Minnesota State Lottery, Missouri Lottery, Montana Lottery, Nebraska Lottery, New Hampshire Lottery Commission, New Mexico Lottery Authority, North Dakota Lottery, Oregon Lottery, Pennsylvania Lottery, Rhode Island Lottery, South Carolina Education Lottery, South Dakota Lottery, Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation, US Virgin Islands Lottery, Vermont Lottery, West Virginia Lottery, and the Wisconsin Lottery.

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Published on 05/22/2005