THE billboards advertising Powerball, an American lottery, were not big enough to display the size of the jackpot in the draw that took place on the evening of January 13th: $1.6 billion. That prize will be split among the three winners, who bought their tickets in California, Florida and Tennessee. For several days beforehand, Lotto fever gripped the nation: long queues formed outside shops selling tickets and on the day of the draw sales were ringing up at a rate of $787,000 per minute. Powerball’s website had some advice for its frantic customers: “Swinging a live chicken above your head while wishing for the future numbers does NOT work.”
A more useful bit of counsel would have been that buying a lottery ticket is fun but financially foolish. A punter buying a Powerball ticket has a 1 in 292m chance of winning the jackpot. Buyers are around four times more likely to be killed by an asteroid impact this year. Lotteries are designed to be a bad deal, hoovering up participants’ money in order to plug state budgets and fund good causes.
What’s more, the designers are getting better at their jobs. Victor Matheson, professor...Continue reading
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