comment: >
  
  Sigh.   *unzips*   (wallet)
context: They really need to update the three digit signs if this is going to happen more often. >
  
  They changed the odds to get these huge jackpots. It seems to work drawing people in. >
  
  I wonder, though, if people will begin to realize that the odds are even worse and they stop playing. I'm not sure it does the game all that much good to go so far between there being winners. I think the long spell between winners diminishes the enthusiasm. I'm not sure if the numbers bear any of this out though. >
  
  I guess? But the odds went from 1 in 175 million to 1 in 292 million. It's not like it was so attainable before. >
  
  It’s like one person in USA will win, but not if you don’t buy a ticket! Hmm, now what else can I pawn to secure my winnings… >
  
  Ok but a lottery ticket is cheaper than a cup of coffee and comes with a chance of winning money. Skip your coffee that day and even if you lose you’ll still be saving $.50. >
  
  Why skip just 1 coffee?  If it's "worth it" (positive expected value), then why not skip the entire week's (or month's!) worth of coffee?  That's the problem.
  In reality, the EV calculations are a bit more complicated than they seem at face value.  Not only do you need to factor in the basic pot odds and the chance/cost of a split, you also have state-level factors to factor in (IIRC California caps the secondary "big" prizes to $1M, for instance), plus there's some degree of uncertainty on what the actual jackpot total will be.  They usually estimate it pretty accurately, though sometimes the estimates are low -- but it's not known precisely until the drawing.  The other issue is that the publicized number is really ~2X what the actual jackpot is, which borders on predatory IMO (they advertise the 30-year annuity value).
  I ran the numbers last time the jackpot was large.  It was ever-so-slightly positive EV (in most states, at least).  The unfortunate reality, though, was that the vast majority of the expected value came from the jackpot itself -- which is subject to the highest variance by far, obviously.  
  If you have an endless money supply, that's fine;  but for the rest of us (proverbially speaking), it's kind of like buying "reverse insurance", and you're paying to be subjected to extremely high variance. >
  
  Lighten up dude, you’re not gonna die penniless if you buy a lottery ticket every once in a while. >
  
  Yeah, I hear ya -- I bought some last time the jackpot was large -- I'm "lighter" on it than it probably sounds.  I feel it's generally regressive, nonetheless. >
  
  Ya I think I’ve bought 6 lottery tickets in my life. Obviously if you’re spending a large amount of your income on something you’re most likely going to lose you’re an idiot lol. >
  
  A lot of money being pumped through this thing. A billion dollar winner just a few weeks ago. >
  
  The essentially made it twice as hard to win recently >
  
  I'm not from the US so I don't know how the winners are chosen, but in my country, the lottery works by pulling a set of numbers from a drum. The amount of people playing has no impact on your likelihood of winning. But it's more likely you might share the jackpot with someone else. This is still pretty rare as far as I know. >
  
  They do essentially the same thing here. But they pick 5 random numbers then 1 extra separate random number form a different drum of numbers.
  So the initial 5 numbers come from a pool of say 70 numbers. Then the final number comes from a pool of 50 numbers. The final number pool used to be 30 numbers. But they added 20 more so that no one would win and the prize would roll over and get larger. Larger prizes mean more ticket sales and pr >
  
  I was going to go buy a ticket just for fun cause I've never done that, but fuck that lol. I know it's all a sham and the odds of winning are astronomical, but doing something like that is so ridiculous >
  
  Yeah the odds have always been high. And if you simply want to win money by gambling a casino would be better. 
  But it's a fun little thing to toss $2-10 dollars at when the pit gets this high for us. Makes for a nice daydream till we see the drawings and lose. Half the time we at least make our money back at least. >
  
  Half the time? Man, I've purchased maybe 20 tickets since I turned 18 (8 years ago), and I've gotten my 2 dollars back once, and nothing else haha >
  
  Yeah. Lucky in that regard with both these and scratchers, which we usually get as cute Christmas swaps.
  I'd be a bit happier if we won at least one of the bigger prizes. I don't need 1B, I'd be more then fine with 1M or even a few hundred thousand. Maybe one day, but also breaking even isn't the worse thing. >
  
  Only did scratch offs once, and it was New Year's Eve in 2021. I think we bought $20 worth and got absolutely nothing haha. It was fun though. When the jackpot gets over 1B, I usually buy a single ticket, just so I can daydream about helping everyone out finally. >
  
  The best we came out on scratchers was about $1000. My parents gave me and my wife about 10 or so when we got married and before we took off on our cruise. 
  I think we've won a few 100 randomly but nothing crazy. I had a friend win about 20k off one. 
  Yeah if we won a good amount besides sorting our immediate finances. Most of the money would go away for our daughter and then vacation paid for for our families to have a good time. Maybe also buy a house for our parents to be closer to spend more time with their granddaughter. Probably help out some schools and other random things to help out others. >
  
  Seems like this will be commonplace after they changed the algorithm for choosing winning numbers >
  
  Since then, I stopped getting small wins, like 2 dollars. So now I don't play unless the pot is over 500 mil. >
  
  My office does a lotto pool.  About 15 people pitch in $5 each. In spite of buying $70+ of tickets (35+ sets of numbers) we usually win $0. Every once in a while we win $2-$4.  This has been consistent for years. No ticket has ever won more than the $2 prize.
  The odds are a $2 winner every 37 plays (1/37 odds, over enough plays we should average out to that).  The fact we go weeks buying 35 sets of numbers with nothing to show for it... Our bad luck is almost impressive.
  And, no, no one is stealing our prizes - I'm the one who buys and checks the tickets. >
  
  This is really sad. Why do you guys bother? 1 ticket is about as likely as 10000 in the grand scheme of things. Burning money, and if one magically win the jackpot…that seems like insane drama I wouldn’t want to deal with. >
  
  They split the pot evenly. It's cheap fun for a little dreaming. >
  
  This is it.  We only play when it gets big. The dream is for us all to win and go out together. >
  
  Also, on the off chance that the pot does hit, you don't want to be the only sucker left in the office on Monday after everyone else quits >
  
  The fact that these get so big so quickly says way too many people waste money playing the lottery. >
  
  Don’t the raised funds go to support roads and education? >
  
  So do taxes which we all pay. The lottery is a tax on people with a propensity to gamble. >
  
  Can some explain to me like I’m five……how these jackpots keep hitting $1B so quickly now?
  I swear they never hit this high, and in recent years it’s so common—a powerball or whatever was just a billion like a month ago, now mega millions is $1B?
  I feel like billion is the new payout threshold range now. Who’s dumping money into lotto tickets in this inflation nightmare? >
  
  They added more numbers to the pool in 2015 so winning is less likely, but payouts are bigger. >
  
  Lol it was already more likely that you’d be crushed by a Meteorite than win the lottery. I don’t think it really needed to be more difficult. >
  
  It’s roughly the odds of you drawing your own name out of a giant hat in a random drawing with every other American. >
  
  But somebody’s gotta win, it could be you!
  At least that’s what they advertise to people who have bad understandings of statistics so they buy more tickets.
  I did win $5 on Christmas though from a stocking ticket. Which puts me at about +$1 since I’ve bought 4 powerball tickets in my 32 years on earth. >
  
  It's called stupidity tax for a reason lol >
  
  The odds of winning are just absurd. I don't buy tickets but when I was student working part time in a factory surrounded by full time employees on shitty pay who would play weekly. I could see the benefit of hope. They loved talking about what they would do if they won, quitting their shitty job and living their dream life. >
  
  Hopes worth $10 a week. >
  
  Is it worth 520 dollars a year? 5200 dollars every 10th year, on something that is close to impossible? Unless you are finacially set that seems really silly IMO. >
  
  Elon Musk is rumoured to be buying 5 billion dollars worth of tickets >
  
  You can buy as many as you want but they say it takes too long to print them. You can buy tickets online in my state so idk how impossible it truly is anymore. >
  
  “Jerry and Marge Go Large” is a great movie that highlights the complications of printing lots of lottery tickets lol >
  
  I wish they would give out 1100 million dollar prizes rather than one billion dollar prize >
  
  That would be a fun gimmick...   
  They do a big prize up to e.g. $1.2 B then they do a "run off" lottery where they give out that whole amount as $1M increments by keep in drawing until it is gone. >
  
  Interesting concept, as I could see tickets sales easily creating a new massive jackpot if some people were garaunteed to win. >
  
  This sentiment is common when jackpots get high,  but hasn't been shown to pan out in reality for multi-jurisdictional games. Used to have one called Rolldown many,  many moons ago. It did not do well and was eventually dropped.
  In-state Lottery games fair far better with this concept, interestingly enough. >
  
  C'mon, that's barely Kilo Millions. Get it up to 1 Trillion! >
  
  It goes to show how hard it is win the lottery.
  With odds like that why should anybody play? >
  
  I bet the guy that wins is gonna buy so much Carl's Jr. >
  
  I’ll build a mile-long driveway and line it with a few of my favorite fast food places, just so I don’t have to leave the house and can still get my drive-thru fix. >
  
  I’d prefer a personal chef and an assistant to pick up the occasional fast food. >
  
  Sometimes, I just want to sit in my truck under a shade tree, blasting classic rock, and stuffing my face with burgers and fries. And I don’t see that going away even with a few hundred million in net worth. >
  
  I play when it gets this high. It's fun. $2 quick pick every month or two, nothing crazy. Can't win if ya don't play ;) >
  
  Average people lost a combined billion dollars so that one person can get filthy rich. >
  
  This article saves me having to check my numbers >
  
  Still check in case of smaller prizes. >
  
  From a $20 purchase of 10 draws, not one number. No Mega ball and not one of those numbers.
  Someone said that a guarantee win is 1 in 25 (tickets) which means you will likely dump $50 for possible $2 - $5.  
  Personally, I'd rather buy scratch off tickets and have better odds at $10K or more jackpots then the 300 million or more to one odds of these "stupid taxes". >
  
  Yeah, since they added more numbers, that's BS. I haven't had even a one dollar winner since then. I only play now if it's over 500 mil. >
  
  Which it is so pony up. >
  
  I bought a season ticket for this, it's not a huge amount of money, I think $90 every 6 months or something, and it totally eliminates any FOMO related to these big jackpots. 
  Every 3 months I get a check in the mail for $2-10 for the "winnings". >
  
  Do you do it via website or your local state lottery? >
  
  My state has a 3rd party service you can buy through, can even pay by CC. They send you a renewal in the mail and everything. >
  
  Finally worth playing >
  
  Prize 10 million: nah, too small.
  1.1 billion: sigh, I guess now I'll play.