(MONEY.CNN) — Could you game the system and guarantee yourself a $1.4 billion Powerball jackpot?
Here's the theory: At $2 a ticket and 1 in 292 million odds, you could seemingly buy every Powerball combination for "just" $584 million -- and still walk away with a massive profit.
The lump-sum jackpot payment is estimated to be about $868 million. That alone would give you a handsome $284 million profit if you bought every ticket. And since there are $92 million in lower-tier prizes, you'd win all of those too. And by flooding the system with all those tickets you purchased, the lump-sum value of the jackpot would rise by $200 million -- which you'd be guaranteed to get back.
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That's a grand total of $1.2 billion in winnings, $576 million of which would be profit.