If you gamble on faith (as opposed to odds) you might not want read this before standing in that mile-long line to buy your Powerball ticket.

The jackpot for Powerball , the popular lottery game available throughout most of the country, has rolled over every week since November because no one has picked the winning six number combination. The next drawing is Wednesday night (Jan. 13), with an estimated jackpot of $1.5 billion, the largest of any lottery game ever!

It costs a mere $2 to play, so why the heck not?

But ... without trying to be a total a total buzz kill here, let's take a quick look at the math.

[ad fullwidth]

The chance of winning almost any big stakes lottery game is just north of impossible. For Powerball, the odds are roughly one in 292 million, up from a mere one in 175 million in October, when the Multi-State Lottery Association stiffened the odds but made it easier to win smaller prizes.

That means your odds of winning are statistically a good deal lower than your odds of, say, getting hit by a bolt of lightening -- a presumably less favorable outcome. So, with that in mind, please be sure to take shelter during thunderstorms, and, if you play Powerball, don't quit your day job ... just yet.

But hey, you never know, right? Someone's eventually gotta win.

In this infographic, animator Joe Golling illustrates the mathematical probability of selecting that winning combination. (Note that the graphic was produced prior to the Lottery Association's decision to up the odds.)

Lotto_POSTER_v3

oddsodds

Infographic: Feeling Lucky? These Are Your Odds of Winning The Powerball Jackpot (Spoiler: Don't Quit Your Day Job)