The Power Ball lottery is up to more than a half-billion dollars this Saturday. Is it worth two bucks to buy a ticket? Nope, the math proves it's not a good play. Business Insider did the math.
What this table means is that you can expect the net payout (after taxes, etc) of each ticket you buy to be negative $1.21. Which is to say that if you buy one ticket per drawing (two per week) for, say, 10 years, you will buy 1,040 tickets at a cost of $2,080 and will win back in prize money $821.60. You'll lose a buck twenty-one per transaction. Buy more tickets and you'll lose more money.
And that is only one reason why lotteries are the greatest scam ever perpetuated on the American people.
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