Go Ahead and Buy a Powerball Ticket

The Powerball jackpot has entered the stratosphere at an estimated $1.5 billion, causing the country to come down with a serious case of lottery fever ahead of Wednesday's drawing. Some related reading on the biggest lottery jackpot in history:

• The New York Times revisits an article from early 2015 explaining why buying lottery tickets can be a "completely rational decision" despite the ludicrously low chances of winning.
• Being killed by a vending machine is among the things Live Science lists as more likely than winning the jackpot.

• At FiveThirtyEight, Walt Hickey crunches the numbers to find out the odds of there being a winner on Wednesday—though he notes that it is "very hard to develop a sanity test for this number."
• The Detroit Free Press looks at how much tax the winner will have to cough up and talks to some of the Canadians crossing the border for tickets.
• "Jackpot fatigue?" The Los Angeles Times takes a look at how the jackpot came to be so enormous.
• The AP looks at the six states that have opted out of Powerball, including two where residents can't simply pop across the state line for tickets.
• The winner will have a choice between a lump sum and an annuity, and the New York Times explains why it makes more sense to go for the latter. One reason: "No matter what stupid choices you make this year, you'll have an enormous check waiting for you next year."

(More Powerball stories.)