These are your chances of winning the R210 million Powerball on Friday

There was no winner of the R190 million Powerball lottery on Tuesday (12 February).
The rollover estimated jackpot now stands at R210 million for the draw on Friday (15 February) – one of the highest lottery jackpots in local history.
Winning a R210 million jackpot would also automatically make you one of the wealthiest people in the country.
According to a 2018 report by New World Wealth, the country is home to 43,600 high-net-worth individuals, each with net assets of $1 million (R14 million) or more.
However, there are just 2,200 ‘multimillionaires’, each with net assets of US$10 million (R140,364,500) or more.
This means that a jackpot winner of R210 million – assuming it is not split and shared with other winners – will be among the 2,200 richest people in the country.
What are your odds of winning?
While this enormous jackpot will tempt many South Africans into buying a ticket, the odds of winning the grand prize are slim.
According to data provided on the national lottery website, a single Powerball play will cost you R5.00 and the overall odds of winning a prize is 1 in 18.
However, there are 42,375,200 different combinations that one can play when choosing 5 out of 50 numbers and 1 out of 20 numbers.
This means that you can expect to pay R211,876,000 for a guaranteed chance of winning the jackpot.
The ‘house edge’
The Lotto and Powerball prize pools are calculated at 50% and 48% of total sales respectively – which means for every R1 you spend on the game, you have a chance to get 50 cents and 48 cents back.
This effective 50%/52% loss on what you pay is referred to as the ‘house edge’ in most casino games, which shows how much the casino – or in this case the Lotto – is guaranteed to make on your spending over time.
Effectively, it equates to the profit made per bet.
For games like roulette, the house edge is much lower, around 5% – while games like blackjack and craps can be under 1%.
Slot machines carry a wide range, but can be as low as 5% and as high as 20%, depending on the machine and game type.