The main point here seems to me that unless people know that you are making a systematic effort to purchase every ticket they will only see the driven-up jackpot.
Aside from incomplete information, I would posit that lottery players tend to be less rational, and the marginal lottery players would buy tickets given the larger jackpot regardless of expected value.
I’m not sure if this increases or decreases your EV, however (i.e. increases jackpot size “faster enough” than chance of splitting).
I’m not sure if this increases or decreases your EV, however
I’m pretty sure it must decrease it. Clearly best possible for our strategy would be for no-one else at all to buy a ticket, then we win 50% of the $42,000,000 we spend on tickets, plus whatever got rolled over from last week. Every time anyone else buys a ticket, they buy a tiny share of whatever was rolled over (in expectation), thus reducing our EV.
The main point here seems to me that unless people know that you are making a systematic effort to purchase every ticket they will only see the driven-up jackpot.
Aside from incomplete information, I would posit that lottery players tend to be less rational, and the marginal lottery players would buy tickets given the larger jackpot regardless of expected value.
I’m not sure if this increases or decreases your EV, however (i.e. increases jackpot size “faster enough” than chance of splitting).
I’m pretty sure it must decrease it. Clearly best possible for our strategy would be for no-one else at all to buy a ticket, then we win 50% of the $42,000,000 we spend on tickets, plus whatever got rolled over from last week. Every time anyone else buys a ticket, they buy a tiny share of whatever was rolled over (in expectation), thus reducing our EV.