The Euro millions has a €240M cap at which the jackpot is divided up in to the lower tier prizes if there is still no winner. The UK national lottery has a cap on roll overs at 5 where the top prize will roll down to the lower tiers if no winner remains.
Because then you wouldn’t get the people who rarely play to throw money in.
The bigger jackpots incentivize those who don’t play for the “pennies” at less than 500 million. They actually reduced the odds of winning a few years ago for this exact reason.
Funny you say that. There’s about 300 million possible numbers so at $2 per ticket you only need to win over $600 million for the lottery to be plus EV. Factor in 37% tax (which is what Google says is the average rate, but may be different depending on state) you “only” need a jackpot of about 950 million to profit.
I play it. I know that the odds make me more likely to die in the time it would take me to claim the prize than to actually win, but someone has to win it and the lotteries in Europe and the UK give a lot of money to good causes.
Hey that $3 buys me the ability to daydream about my life as a multimillionaire for a couple days, before I crash back to reality slightly less satisfied than before!
The new jackpot for Wednesday’s drawing would be the third highest in U.S. history and will keep growing until someone wins. Ticket buyers have a chance at $1 billion paid out in yearly increments or a $516.8 million one-time lump sum before taxes.
Add comment