The money's enormous. The odds are infinitesmal.
So maybe it's time to start a lottery pool.
True, most winners went solo, but occasionally a group grabs the loot - like the 10 North Jersey coworkers who divvied a March Mega Millions prize worth $140 million cash. Or the 22 Philadelphia postal workers who hit for $10.2 million cash last October in Powerball.
Consider the current jaw-dropping jackpots: $170 million for the Mega Millions drawing tomorrow, $245 million for Powerball on Wednesday.
Both rolled over over the weekend.
You could afford to "settle" for a slice, right?
Even shared among 40 people, Mega Million's $106 million cash prize is still more than $2.6 million each.
At 5 percent interest, that's about $100,000 a year - after taxes.
Could you live off that?
Even if - horrors! - you had to split the grand prize with some bloke in Biloxi, you'd still get $50,000.
Alas, the odds against winning are astronomical, too. Buy one Mega Millions ticket and you have 1 chance in 176.7 million of hitting the top prize.
For Powerball, it's even worse: 1 shot in 195.2 million.
That's like plucking the one right strand of hair from among 2,000 heads.
Of course, if your pool has, say, 40 people, that helps.
In Pennsylvania, Delaware, or the 28 other states where Powerball is played, your collective shot would be 1 in about 4.9 million. In New Jersey, one of 12 states, where Mega Millions is played, the chance would be about 1 in 4.4 million.
And the more tickets you buy, the "better" your odds.
But even at 10 tickets per pool player, for a total of 400 tickets, you're still facing 1 chance in 490,000 in Pennsylvania, 1 in 440,000 in New Jersey.
I'm thinking of a mile between here and the moon: Can you guess it?
That's much easier than guessing either multistate lottery's numbers.
Finally, a tip: If you run a lottery pool and then "just happen" to win yourself - with a ticket you say you bought separately - you could expect a gigantic hassle.
So write down every player's name, and hand out copies for folks to see, along with copies of all the tickets.
Witnesses can be a protection program.
Contact staff writer Peter Mucha at 215-854-4342 or pmucha@phillynews.com.
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