How to Win $1.8 Billion: Buy Every Ticket
A deep dive into how the world’s biggest lottery quietly became an advantage play.
It sounds crazy — but mathematically, it checks out. When the Powerball jackpot climbed to $1.787 billion, the idea of buying every ticket stopped being absurd and started looking like a solvable equation.
How Powerball Works
Each ticket costs $2. Players pick five numbers from 1 to 69 and one Powerball number from 1 to 26 — a total of 292 million possible combinations. The odds of hitting the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338.
Normally, every $2 bet returns about 28 cents in small prizes. The lottery keeps the rest. But no wonder people say the lottery is a tax on people who can’t do arithmetic. We can.
Once jackpots pass a billion dollars, the math flips. At $1.8 billion, the expected value of a $2 ticket rises to roughly $6.4 before taxes*, driven almost entirely by the jackpot component. Buying every combination becomes profitable.
Why It Works
Buy all 292 million combinations for $584 million, and you’re guaranteed the $1.787 billion jackpot.
Winners choose between two payout options:
Annuity (30 years): After federal taxes, around $1 billion remains. Subtract $584 million for tickets and add $94 million in smaller prizes — net profit ≈ $510 million.
Lump-sum cash option: Around $900 million before tax; after federal and state taxes (~37 %), you keep $550–600 million. Subtract $584 million for tickets and add $94 million in small prizes — net profit ≈ $60–110 million, depending on the state.
Even the lump sum leaves you ahead — and you don’t have to wait 30 years.
Four Practical Problems
To pull this off, four things must align:
No shared jackpot — one duplicate ticket ruins the math.
The ability to print hundreds of millions of tickets in days.
Roughly half a billion dollars in cash, upfront.
And no one else pulling it off.
With Powerball, it sounds impossible. But in another lottery, it wasn’t.
The Texas Experiment
In April 2023, a group decided to test the theory — not in Powerball, but in the smaller Lotto Texas game.
There were only 25.8 million possible combinations at $1 each. A typical draw sold about a million tickets — roughly 4 % of all possibilities. That meant minimal risk of a shared jackpot and a price tag twenty-two times smaller than Powerball.
When the jackpot passed $50 million, Aid Repcenko, CEO of Spinola Gaming in Malta, contacted lottery officials, asking if it was possible to buy every combination.
At the same time, Dawn Nettles, a longtime Lotto Texas player, warned the commission that such a purchase was now mathematically profitable and should be stopped. She considered it unfair to ordinary players.
The Commission Helped Instead
The Texas Lottery Commission shocked everyone. Instead of blocking the plan, it helped make it happen.
“We were totally prepared for them to laugh and say, ‘No, of course you can’t do that,’” — Greg Potts, COO of Lottery.com.
The commission approved dozens of new terminals for four low-volume retailers — shops that had barely sold tickets before. No one questioned the expansion. The system that processed millions of QR-code orders on iPads also went unchallenged.
The operation was planned in Malta and funded by a London bookmaker. Four Texas retailers printed nearly 26 million tickets — covering virtually the entire field.
The syndicate hit the jackpot: $95 million. They chose the cash option — $57.8 million before taxes. After the 37 % federal rate, about $36.4 million remained. Add roughly $2.1 million in smaller prizes and subtract $25.8 million spent on tickets.
Net profit ≈ $12.7 million.
Dawn Nettles bought more tickets than usual in that draw.
“God, just let me hold the winning ticket so those people don’t win,” — Dawn Nettles.
The Political Fallout
When the story broke, it detonated. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick called it:
“The biggest theft of citizens’ money in April 2023, when a foreign syndicate purchased 26 million $1 tickets in Lotto Texas. The Lottery Commission not only inexplicably allowed this to happen but also provided extraordinary assistance in printing those tickets in several courier locations.”
An investigation found the commission had broken no law. Blame fell on the courier services that processed the tickets. In 2024, lawmakers introduced Senate Bill 28 to restrict or ban courier-based lottery sales statewide.
The Austin Sequel
It looked like the lesson had been learned. Politicians condemned couriers, regulators promised tighter oversight, and officials assured everyone it couldn’t happen again.
Then, in February 2025, it did. Someone won $83.5 million through the courier app Jackpocket. The ticket was printed at Winner’s Corner in Austin — the same shop from 2023. Online sales spiked before the draw, but the commission released no buyer data.
Patrick called it “the second act of the same play.” Attorney General Ken Paxton and Governor Greg Abbott launched investigations. The commission froze the payout for months. In August 2025, after a settlement, the winner received $45.8 million before taxes. Lottery Director Ryan Mindell resigned, the commission banned courier services, and both cases remain open.
What About Powerball?
While Texas wrestled with scandal, something else happened.
The Texas case proved that buying it all isn’t fantasy. It’s viable — if four things align: a jackpot big enough to cover costs, a regulator who looks away, infrastructure to print millions of tickets and capital to fund the bet.
On September 6, 2025, the Powerball jackpot hit $1.787 billion. Two tickets matched all numbers — one sold in Fredericksburg, Texas, and one in Missouri.
Once again, the numbers led back to Texas.
Coincidence? Maybe.
Maybe it was just one lucky person, a gas-station ticket, a dream come true.
Or maybe a syndicate ran the math, learned from the Texas Lottery loophole, and did what everyone else thought impossible — buy the field, hedge the odds, and quietly walk away with half of $1.8 billion.
Still think it’s impossible?
*Calculation:
Jackpot (annuity): $1,787,000,000
Total possible combinations: 292,201,338
Jackpot EV = 1,787,000,000 ÷ 292,201,338 ≈ $6.12
Smaller-prize EV = $93,722,878 ÷ 292,201,338 ≈ $0.32
Total expected value ≈ $6.12 + $0.32 = $6.44 per $2 ticket before taxes.
Still think it’s impossible?
In 1729, Voltaire and mathematician Charles-Marie de La Condamine found a flaw in the French state lottery.
They bought almost every ticket and split the profit — Voltaire became a millionaire and left mathematics for philosophy.
In the 1990s, Romanian economist Stefan Mandel printed every possible ticket and won 14 jackpots, including $27 million in the Virginia Lotto in 1992.
That same year, an Irish syndicate bought 1.6 million tickets out of 1.94 million possible.
They won £1.1 million, and Ireland banned bulk ticket purchases shortly after.