Question

The Powerball lottery is played twice each week in 28 states, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia. To play Powerball a participant must purchase a ticket and then select five numbers from the digits 1 through 55 and a Powerball number from the digits 1 through 42. To determine the winning numbers for each game, lottery officials draw five white balls out of a drum with 55 white balls, and then one red ball out of a drum with 42 red balls. To win the jackpot, a participant’s numbers must match the numbers on the five white balls and the number on the red Powerball. Compute the number of ways the first five numbers can be selected.

Answer 1

There are 3478761 ways to select the first 5 numbers

Explanation:

As understood from the statement of this problem we assume that it does not matter the order in which the first 5 white balls are selected.

In this case it is a combination.

So, what we want to know is how many ways you can choose 5 white balls out of 55.

Then we use the formula of combinations:

`C(n, x) = (n!)/(x! (n-x)!)`

Where you have n elements and choose x from them.

Then we look for:

`C(55, 5) = (55!)/(5!(55-5)!)\\\\C(55, 5) = (55!)/(5!(50)!)\\\\C(55, 5) = 3478761`