In the multistate lottery game Powerball, there are 120,526,770 possible number combinations, only one of which is the grand prize winner. The cost of a single ticket (one number combination) is $1. Suppose that a very wealthy person decides to buy tickets for every possible number combination to be assured of winning a $150 million grand prize.
(a) If this individual could purchase one ticket every second, how many hours would it take to buy all of the tickets? How many years is this?
(b) If there were a way for this individual to buy all possible number combinations quickly, discuss reasons why this strategy would probably lose money.