Texas Lottery Watchdog Calls Record Jackpot A Bad Deal
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GARLAND (CBSDFW.COM) - Changes to the Powerball drawing has a Texas lottery watchdog calling it a bad deal.
Dawn Nettles of Lotto Report believes the jackpot is too high, your odds of winning too low and there's a chance you may receive a duplicate ticket.
"I fight for the rights of the players and retailers," said Nettles.
A lottery watchdog, she said the recent change to how the Powerball is picked has increased the odds too much.
"The odds are too high from when they changed a few months ago and made 290 million combinations," said Nettles.
That means your odds of winning are 1 in 292,201,338.
Before the change, customers had to pick five numbers 1-59.
Now, you have to pick five numbers 1-69, adding an additional 117 million combinations, bringing us to today's astronomical odds of winning. Nettles points to the fact that nobody won the lottery last Saturday as proof of her theory.
"They sold 440 million tickets, there's only 292 million combinations so there should have been a winner. Tells you how bad the duplicate tickets are," she said.
Nettles explained that means customers may be buying the same losing numbers as people in other states.
Customers standing in line to buy tickets at a Garland gas station told CBS11, they know the odds are stacked against them... but want to play anyways.
Follow Consumer Justice Investigator Cristin Severance on Twitter
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