Excel PowerBall Lottery Simulator Spreadsheet
With all the excitement over the $900 Million PowerBall Jackpot this past weekend, I thought it would be interesting to create an Excel-based simulator so I could pretend that I had money to blow on purchasing lottery tickets (I ended up buying 2 losing tickets, so it looks like I won’t be retiring in my 20’s….)
I busted this simulator out in 2 hours (thanks to a little dose of caffeine). So feel free to dig into the VBA logic and correct anything that may be wrong, but I am fairly confident it’s performing as intended.
The basic premise of the simulator, is you tell it how much money you want to spend playing the lottery, pick some numbers, and then watch as you play the PowerBall lottery over and over until you run out of money. I’m not going to lie this simulator is both extremely addicting and filled with lot’s of disappointment…kind of like the real thing!
Below is the simulation dashboard I came up with, and yes 100% of it was created in Excel (even the lottery icons)!
The Odds Are DEFINITELY Not In Your Favor
I think we all are aware that it is very hard to win the lottery, but I think it’s sometimes hard to relate to really crazy odds like 1 in 11.6 million. So here are a few different ways at looking at the lottery odds:
- Struck by lightning, while drowning (1 in 183 million)
- Killed by an asteroid strike (1 in 700,000)
- Have an IQ of 190 or greater (1 in 107 million)
- Attacked by a shark (1 in 11.5 million)
- Elected President of the United States (1 in 10 million)
- Getting struck by lightning (1 in 164,968)
- Being drafted by an NBA team (1 in 6.8 million)
- Becoming a movie star (1 in 1.5 million)
- Dating a supermodel (1 in 88,000)
- Being killed by a vending machine (1 in 112 million)
(Source: TheDenverChannel.com)
PowerBall Lottery Winnings/Odds
Below is a little infographic I created in Excel with the official statistics for the PowerBall Lottery drawing as of January 2016.
Download the Excel Simulator & Test Your Luck
If you want to download my PowerBall Lottery Simulator spreadsheet (fully unlocked), feel free to directly download the spreadsheet by clicking the download button below.
Are You Able To Turn A Profit?
After playing around with this simulator for quite some time, I came to the conclusion that I am not really that lucky. But I’m sure some of you are! Post a screenshot of your highest lottery winnings in the comments section below and who knows, maybe I’ll give out a REAL prize for some of the top earners 🙂 P.S. No CHEATING!!
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Chris Newman
Chris is a finance professional and Excel MVP recognized by Microsoft since 2016. With his expertise, he founded TheSpreadsheetGuru blog to help fellow Excel users, where he shares his vast creative solutions & expertise. In addition, he has developed over 7 widely-used Excel Add-ins that have been embraced by individuals and companies worldwide.