According to rational (or statistical) analysis
Published in · 7 min read · Dec 19, 2019
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Is there ever a time the expected return would be positive from a lottery ticket?
More people tend to buy lottery tickets when there is a larger jackpot. Does this make sense?
This article aims to answer these questions based on statistical analysis.
Introduction
The lottery we are studying here is one of the most popular lottery games in Canada — Lotto 6/49. Like many other lottery games, Lotto 6/49 also rolls over the jackpot when there are no winning tickets in a draw. Over the past year, there have been a few large jackpots of over $20 million.
The largest single jackpot ever in Canadian lottery history is from Lotto 6/49 as well. It was drawn on October 17, 2015 for a jackpot of $64 million. And the jackpot was won by one single ticket purchased in Ontario. This is less than 10% of the American largest jackpot in history — $768.4 million jackpot in the Powerball. But it corresponds to the Canadian population vs U.S. population ratio.
