You’ve probably heard that Powerball is now $2. The effects of this change have been two-fold:

1.) There are more frequent “mega” jackpots.

2.) Organizing an office pool has become a logistical nightmare.

Let’s start with the mega jackpot paradox. Almost right away, the Powerball jackpot swelled to $325 million. The other day, I saw a billboard on my way back to the newsroom and immediately shared the good news with my colleagues.

At least, it seemed like good news at first. You see, this whole $2 situation is going to lead to a lot of impressive sounding jackpots. The question: do we, as a newsroom, increase the jackpot threshold before we participate? And how should we value the corresponding increase?

The price of a ticket doubled. In the past, we would start playing around the time the jackpot reached $250. That would occur two or three times a year. Should we wait to play until the first $500 million jackpot?

The problem, of course, is that we have no idea whether other people will wait to get involved.

If all of the other casual players keep jumping in at the same value as before, the jackpot will never reach $500 million, but we’re obviously not going to fork over money every time the prize is $250 million. That’ll happen about once a week and only suckers play all the time.

I suspect we’ll just have to hash out all of these issues as we go along, perhaps forming a research committee to study the options. As the guy who usually goes out to buy the tickets, I would even endorse giving this committee blue-ribbon status.

Now on to the organizational issues.

Remember during the 2008 presidential race when everyone said Barack Obama wasn’t qualified because he was a “community organizer?” Well, let me tell you something: organizing a community is very, very hard.

Back when Powerball was $1, it was easy. We would always splurge for the “Power Play.” That made the ticket $2, but it multiplied whatever we won. That reminds me of my grandfather’s last words after he’d been shot by some German soldiers.

“When you’re gaming, always bet the maximum,” he whispered to me, drawing his last breath. “Always.”

I wasn’t alive during World War II, of course. This happened in 2008.

Now, however, adding the Power Play makes the ticket worth $3. All of a sudden, any even numbered amount of money won’t do.

My colleagues, Ellie, Lee and Mark, all pulled out four dollars. With my four dollars, we had a total of $16, enough for five and one-third tickets.

“We need more investors,” I declared.

“How many people?” Ellie asked.

“What’s the next number that can be evenly divided by both three and four?” I replied.

There was a long pause.

We got it eventually. The answer is 24. We needed to find two more people. Freda, our assignment editor, wasn’t interested.

“Wait, don’t we own KLIF now?” I realized. “Shouldn’t they have a news anchor around here somewhere?”

They did. His name is Matt and he sits in a nearby room with the door closed (I’m not sure why). He wasn’t carrying any cash.

I made my way down the lonely halls of Cumulus Media’s Arlington studios. They were once filled with people striding around confidently with binders and what-not, but most of them have now moved on to our new studios in Dallas.

Luckily, Cumulus is even recycling our doors. Our engineers have taken them to the new place, so it was easy to find the studios where our voice-over people were working. After a brief pitch, Todd and Stubie had joined the newsroom Powerball pool and we were on our way.

“Wait, I want to get in, now!” Freda exclaimed.

But it was too late for her.

“No, we’ve got enough money for exactly six tickets at three dollars apiece,” I explained. “No, wait. Seven tickets.”

“It’s eight tickets,” she replied.

“You’re still not allowed in. It’ll mess it up.”

I’m sorry to report we didn’t win. Powerball has foiled our plan to buy back the radio station. We were even going to splurge for new doors.