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Old 07-13-2005, 12:45 PM
CORed CORed is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 273
Default Re: The lottery, The odds, and You

While it is true tht a big enough jackpot can make a lottery +EV, it has to be bigger than you might think

When the jackpot gets big, a lot more people play, which increases the probability of a split jackpot. This reduces the EV somewhat.

The prizes quoted are usually the total payout of 20 year annuities. The true cash value of a "$50 million" jackpot is considerably less than $50 million.
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