But that possibility is present regardless of whether the jackpot accumulates or not, or am I missing something?
Certainly lotteries with an oversized jackpot will sell more tickets, thus increasing the risk, but it doesn’t seem obvious to me that the player pool will increase fast enough to keep the EV down.
Well I suppose that it depends on the rules of that specific lottery, but I suspect that most U.S. state lotteries with large jackpots do split the total prize between all winning tickets. It’s just that the odds of having to split your prize are a lot harder to know than the odds of winning the jackpot at all.
But that possibility is present regardless of whether the jackpot accumulates or not, or am I missing something?
Certainly lotteries with an oversized jackpot will sell more tickets, thus increasing the risk, but it doesn’t seem obvious to me that the player pool will increase fast enough to keep the EV down.
Well I suppose that it depends on the rules of that specific lottery, but I suspect that most U.S. state lotteries with large jackpots do split the total prize between all winning tickets. It’s just that the odds of having to split your prize are a lot harder to know than the odds of winning the jackpot at all.