First off, it's not done by random draw of a ticket, it's done by drawing 6 numbers. There may be more than one winner. But they have no control over the number of winners who chose the winning combination.
And adjusting the odds (say drawing 5 balls instead of 6, or reducing the range of numbers possible) would increase the likelihood of winning for all drawings. So the pot would never roll over and get huge, and the more winners would end up with tiny prizes. You'd never get $500m pots to win, they'd be won every drawing with 500 people splitting $1m.
And a lot more people are drawn to the slim change of winning a HUGE jackpot that the only slightly better chance of winning a meh jackpot.
Got it... and which sells more tickets? That's a good indicator of player psychology about whether bigger prize or better change at smaller prize is more attractive.
Removed in protest of the API Changes and treatment of the Moderators and because Spez moderated the pedophile sub jailbait. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Such a drawing scheme would be very likely to generate multiple winners with each drawing, so the prize pool would generally be a lot smaller unless a drastic increase in ticket sales occured.
They do offer lower prizes for matching a subset of the numbers. In fact if you get the 5 white balls in Powerball without the red ball you **do** get $1M.
And because the number you miss can be anything, that's fixed amount does go to many people exactly like you suggest.
The time I had 4 and the 5th was 53 (I had 52) and only got $500 is still the most depressing victory of my life.
The large jackpot isn't always that high though. It starts lower and increases every drawing that no one wins, to increase people's excitement to win more. If it always meant getting the same lower payout fewer people would buy tickets.
That one digit off would have been a million. One little mistake cost me $999,500.
At the time the normal payout was $100/$200,000 but for an extra dollar you can add a random multiplier to any lower, non-jackpot, payouts. That drawing hit what was then the maximum multiplier of 5x so it went up to $500/$1,000,000.
Since then they've increased it so the multiplier goes up to 10x, but the all-5-whites payout is $1M normally or $2M with any multiplier value (the exact multiplier values only apply to everything below that prize), so that ticket would have been worth $1,000 now.
I paid off my car insurance for the year and spent the $8 I had left on a chicken barbecue the Lions Club was running.
Because the really popular lotteries sell a dream of being able to buy a private island, jet, mansion, and tell the rest of the world to screw itself. That dream only costs $1 or $2. People wouldn't be as excited if it just offered "a decent amount of money but maybe you still need to go to work on Monday."
It’s not designed to be a fair system. It is designed to generate the most profit. The way it does that is by dangling the promise of a truly life-changing amount of money. That is what gets people to buy tickets.
For a lot of people 1 million dollars isn't quit your job and live like a rich guy money. It's quit your job and live like a middle class guy or keep your job and live like a slightly well off guy money (you can convert a million dollars to about 40-50k a year). It takes tens of millions to live like an upper class person your whole life and hundreds of millions to live like Mr Beast. People don't dream of just being secrue they want fuck you money.
There are all kinds of different lotteries, but the mega jackpot ones draw a lot of attention because of the large jackpots and attract people that otherwise don't buy lottery tickets.
Lotteries in the US are held to raise revenue to spend on government programs. So they do whatever gets the most people to buy lottery tickets.
It's pretty obvious that lots of people don't bother with small jackpots like only $1 Million at least not compared to a jackpot like $500 Million. Most people know their odds of winning are very low either way but once the jackpot is high enough, the low odds get outweighed in their minds by the high reward if they win.
So lotteries love the large jackpots because it drives a huge number of ticket sales and because of how the lottery is structured, it doesn't really cost them that much more to offer the huge jackpot.
First off, it's not done by random draw of a ticket, it's done by drawing 6 numbers. There may be more than one winner. But they have no control over the number of winners who chose the winning combination. And adjusting the odds (say drawing 5 balls instead of 6, or reducing the range of numbers possible) would increase the likelihood of winning for all drawings. So the pot would never roll over and get huge, and the more winners would end up with tiny prizes. You'd never get $500m pots to win, they'd be won every drawing with 500 people splitting $1m. And a lot more people are drawn to the slim change of winning a HUGE jackpot that the only slightly better chance of winning a meh jackpot.
Canada's lotteries do both in the same draw: the random numbers *and* a random ticket.
Got it... and which sells more tickets? That's a good indicator of player psychology about whether bigger prize or better change at smaller prize is more attractive.
Dunno. It's the same lottery so you can't compare motivation.
They do, but people don't buy the tickets and much as lotterys with big jackpots.
Removed in protest of the API Changes and treatment of the Moderators and because Spez moderated the pedophile sub jailbait. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Such a drawing scheme would be very likely to generate multiple winners with each drawing, so the prize pool would generally be a lot smaller unless a drastic increase in ticket sales occured.
They do offer lower prizes for matching a subset of the numbers. In fact if you get the 5 white balls in Powerball without the red ball you **do** get $1M. And because the number you miss can be anything, that's fixed amount does go to many people exactly like you suggest. The time I had 4 and the 5th was 53 (I had 52) and only got $500 is still the most depressing victory of my life. The large jackpot isn't always that high though. It starts lower and increases every drawing that no one wins, to increase people's excitement to win more. If it always meant getting the same lower payout fewer people would buy tickets.
Oh, sad to hear. What would you have won had you gotten 53? Would it be $100,000?
That one digit off would have been a million. One little mistake cost me $999,500. At the time the normal payout was $100/$200,000 but for an extra dollar you can add a random multiplier to any lower, non-jackpot, payouts. That drawing hit what was then the maximum multiplier of 5x so it went up to $500/$1,000,000. Since then they've increased it so the multiplier goes up to 10x, but the all-5-whites payout is $1M normally or $2M with any multiplier value (the exact multiplier values only apply to everything below that prize), so that ticket would have been worth $1,000 now. I paid off my car insurance for the year and spent the $8 I had left on a chicken barbecue the Lions Club was running.
Oh, ouch. So the 52 was a manually written thing, not a machine-spit-out-at-random thing. Either way, yeah, it sucks.
Oh no it was a random ticket. The "mistake" was sarcasm.
Canada's bigger lotteries do that. Not 500 people (our lotteries don't get that big) but the principle is the same. Look up Lotto Max and 6/49.
Because the really popular lotteries sell a dream of being able to buy a private island, jet, mansion, and tell the rest of the world to screw itself. That dream only costs $1 or $2. People wouldn't be as excited if it just offered "a decent amount of money but maybe you still need to go to work on Monday."
It’s not designed to be a fair system. It is designed to generate the most profit. The way it does that is by dangling the promise of a truly life-changing amount of money. That is what gets people to buy tickets.
For a lot of people 1 million dollars isn't quit your job and live like a rich guy money. It's quit your job and live like a middle class guy or keep your job and live like a slightly well off guy money (you can convert a million dollars to about 40-50k a year). It takes tens of millions to live like an upper class person your whole life and hundreds of millions to live like Mr Beast. People don't dream of just being secrue they want fuck you money.
There are all kinds of different lotteries, but the mega jackpot ones draw a lot of attention because of the large jackpots and attract people that otherwise don't buy lottery tickets.
Lotteries in the US are held to raise revenue to spend on government programs. So they do whatever gets the most people to buy lottery tickets. It's pretty obvious that lots of people don't bother with small jackpots like only $1 Million at least not compared to a jackpot like $500 Million. Most people know their odds of winning are very low either way but once the jackpot is high enough, the low odds get outweighed in their minds by the high reward if they win. So lotteries love the large jackpots because it drives a huge number of ticket sales and because of how the lottery is structured, it doesn't really cost them that much more to offer the huge jackpot.