Right. That’s how I’ve lost $350. Every ticket you buy (so long as you’re not buying duplicates) has the same value, assuming others’ purchases stay constant. It’s just that if you put in $50, your highly likely outcome is a severe loss.
The risk management is a big deal as you get to big numbers. Yes, the expectation for 20 million tickets is equivalently good as far as expected value per ticket bought, but that a 50% chance of a massive loss. The really catastrophic outcome is to screw up in physically inserting the 4.1 million or so paper tickets into the machines if you’re forced to buy them that way; you’ll likely have some loss to human misfeasance or malfeasance and if you reverse-hit the lottery with a lost ticket, that’s officially bad.
Anyway, short version, MrHen’s totally right. I’d note to bgrah449′s below that you can only buy tickets when the lottery’s at the right number and when the rate of purchase is low relative to the jackpot and chance of winning. You do this every week, and you’ll get squashed like a bug. But people are now building up that jackpot; if it doesn’t hit for long enough, the opportunity’s there.
Right. That’s how I’ve lost $350. Every ticket you buy (so long as you’re not buying duplicates) has the same value, assuming others’ purchases stay constant. It’s just that if you put in $50, your highly likely outcome is a severe loss.
The risk management is a big deal as you get to big numbers. Yes, the expectation for 20 million tickets is equivalently good as far as expected value per ticket bought, but that a 50% chance of a massive loss. The really catastrophic outcome is to screw up in physically inserting the 4.1 million or so paper tickets into the machines if you’re forced to buy them that way; you’ll likely have some loss to human misfeasance or malfeasance and if you reverse-hit the lottery with a lost ticket, that’s officially bad.
Anyway, short version, MrHen’s totally right. I’d note to bgrah449′s below that you can only buy tickets when the lottery’s at the right number and when the rate of purchase is low relative to the jackpot and chance of winning. You do this every week, and you’ll get squashed like a bug. But people are now building up that jackpot; if it doesn’t hit for long enough, the opportunity’s there.