$900 million lottery--why did you buy a ticket?

[Doctor_Jackson]

@Rigamarole

There’s a whole discussion about this going on in GQ. Any group going all-in could have the tickets pre-printed. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone started preparing for a pot like this back when they lowered the odds months ago, and they end up winning on Wednesday.

Yes, and post #33 in that thread bears out what I say:

@Tired_and_Cranky

You have to buy the tickets in person and I think in most or all states, in cash. So you need an army of people walking around with $292 million. And you need the logistics to make sure that the tickets can be retrieved to find the winner. None of your buyers can steal cash or tickets and none can get mugged on the way to or from the lottery agent. This isn’t a trivial problem. This article suggests it’s not possible. Could you guarantee yourself a Powerball jackpot?

Furthermore, because of the likelihood of sharing the big prize, the expected value of the ticket only climbs above $2 when the grand prize is about $1.6 billion. We’re not there yet. Finally, if it gets there, you only expect to break even but there is risk in the distribution of those outcomes… Whether you make or lose money buying every ticket depends solely on being the only winner, or at least no worse than 1 of 2. According to that article, with 440 million tickets sold, you have only a 55% chance of being the sole winner or 1 of 2. With the greater number of tickets sold this week, the odds of multiple winners (and your odds of going bust) only climb.

Prebuying, even if allowed, wouldn’t help unless you could be sure that the pot would be big enough at some future time.