The lottery, The odds, and You

[joshman1204]

I thought about this some over the weekend and here is my new take on this issue.

The big key to having a +EV lotto is not the relation of jackpot size to the odds of winning, you also have to consider the predicted number of tickets sold for that drawing. You also have to consider tax implications and also what percentage of your money you are going to lose either to inflation while waiting for the yearly payouts or the penalty most lottos asses to get the cash up front. The cash options of most lottos reduce the jackpot by anywhere from %30-%50.

This means you cant simply say the jackpot is X and the odds of winning are > X so this is a +EV bet. I do think there are some mildly +EV lotto jackpots but I actually think they are going to be some of the smaller jackpots not the very large ones but needless to say the variance is going to be out of this world!