Anderson Cooper Cracks Up as Harry Enten Won’t Stop Saying ‘Balls’ in ‘Off-the-Rails’ Segment

Anderson Cooper had a hard time composing himself Friday night as CNN data guru Harry Enten had himself a ball while explaining the odds of winning the lottery.

The AC360 host noted the Mega Millions jackpot currently stands at $1.35 billion, with a lump sum payout of $726 million. It’s the second-largest prize in its history.

“Are you going to crush jackpot dreams tonight?” Cooper asked Enten.

“The chance of winning the Mega Millions is north of one in 300 million,” he replied. “Mega Millions is even more of a rip-off than the Powerball.”

Enten noted the odds of winning the Powerball are about one in 292 million. He said the odds of a random British person being King Charles III are actually much better, at one in 67 million.

“I feel like we’re seeing more huge jackpots lately,” Cooper observed.

“We really are,” Enten responded.

“Is that just because more people are playing,” the host asked.

“So, essentially what happened was the Powerball and Mega Millions folks… essentially what they did was, ‘Hey, we wanna drive these jackpots up. We want to lengthen the odds.’ So, what did they do? They added more balls. So, essentially the Powerball folks, they added more of their regular balls while the Mega Millions folks added more of the mega balls.”

As Cooper laughed, Enten informed him he had no intention of relenting.

“And I’m going to try and say ‘balls’ as many times in this segment as possible,” he said, prompting audible laughter from CNN’s crew off-screen. “And in doing so, they lengthened the odds. They made it harder to win the jackpot and then it drives those jackpots to go higher and higher and higher, just like Jackie Wilson once said.”

“So, why is it harder to win?” Cooper asked, as if to egg on Enten.

“That is why it’s harder to win,” he replied. “Because they added more balls! As I said, they added more balls! I don’t know what else you wanna hear from me! I can say it a thousand times!”

Cooper said the segment had gone “off the rails.”

He asked Enten about states governing the anonymity of lottery winners.

“I’m looking to see if you can work ‘balls’ into this,” Cooper said.

“Well, let’s if I can do it,” he said. “If you match all six balls – there it was, not that hard – and if you managed to do it, you want to remain anonymous. You don’t want your neighbors bothering you. There are 16 states that allow you to remain anonymous.”

Watch above via CNN