A Guaranteed Way To Win Powerball — Almost

No, I'm not kidding. There is a guaranteed way to win Powerball. Kinda.

$500 million is up for grabs Wednesday night in Powerball. That jackpot is so large that, technically, you could buy every combination of lottery numbers, which would make you a guaranteed Powerball winner.

So far, so good.

There are just under 200,000,000 possible combinations of numbers in Powerball, one of which will definitely be picked Wednesday night. So, yes, if you spent $200 million, you could buy every combination and win $500 million.

So far, so good.

And -- even better -- you would, in theory, win more than $500,000,000 because you would have lots of smaller winning tickets.

Woo hoo! Start planning your tropical island getaway!!

Here's where you should stop planning... obviously, at least one third of that jackpot would go to taxes. And, even though it's a small chance, if someone else buys a ticket with all of the winning numbers, your jackpot would automatically be cut in half, thus making this a money losing scheme.

Insert frowny face here.

On top of that, physically trying to buy 200 million lottery tickets in the four day span you have between drawings is impossible. Not to mention how much you'll be hated by the guy behind the counter at 7-11. CNBC did the math and, using one lottery machine, it would take you about six years to buy every Powerball combination.

Two frowny faces.

So, why not get more people to buy tickets? You would need hundreds and hundreds of people each with hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention logistics that rival that of the traffic lights at the airport circle in EHT to pull it off. After all, even one mistake could cost you half-a-billion dollars. And, on top of that, all of these lottery ticket buyers will want to get paid for standing in line... and, in my luck, one of those people would have the winning ticket and would never to be seen again.

So, is there a guaranteed way to win Powerball? Yes. Are the odds better if you just bought a couple bucks worth of tickets and held your breath? Yes.