New App Helps Office Lottery Players In Powerball Sweepstakes
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - With the Powerball now at a record $1.5 billion, chances are good you're in an office lottery pool.
While it won't change the odds for any individual ticket, the pool allows the group more chances to win something.
Office pools are as old as office work, but the technology is changing.
You know how most office pools are: you collect money from your colleagues, write their names on an envelope,. and then wait for the big win.
But maybe there's a better way of doing this.
Have you thought about using an app?
What? Of course, there's an app.
"There's over a million apps on each of the different stores right now, both IOS and Android, so there really is an app for almost every single thing you need," says Professor Jason Hong.
Join The Conversation On The KDKA Facebook Page
Stay Up To Date, Follow KDKA On Twitter
Hong is an app expert at Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Sciences, and he says there are several apps designed for office lottery pools.
"The ones that you want are the ones that can easily communicate to the group as to what tickets were bought, what those numbers were, so again everyone is on the exact same page, no hurt feelings, and everyone is in agreement on how much money is spent."
So use an app that both records the names of everyone who participates, communicates with all members of the pool, and takes and shares pictures of all the tickets jointly purchased.
The latter is smart protection.
"There have been challenges in the past when people who have bought Powerball tickets for their pool and also bought Powerball tickets for themselves, and then when the group one, actually switched the numbers," warns Hong.
The CMU professor says some apps are free and others cost a buck or two.
And while the old fashioned paper and pen system works, he adds, "If you're trying to manage a large number of people and a repeated number of these kinds of lotteries, then I think it could be pretty effective, and a lot of fun, too."