$330 Million

Tonight’s Mega Millions jackpot is estimated at $330 million (I suspect it will be bigger). The odds of winning on a single $1 ticket are 176 million to one. Thus, according to a game-theory construct, buying a ticket in this lottery is worthwhile since the expected return is almost $2 for a $1 bet (330/176). So today I bought $20 worth of tickets which makes my odds of winning 8.8 million to one (176/20) … still pretty long odds but a bit of an improvement. In fact, one might compare the odds of winning on the purchase of one ticket to the chance of you trying to contact an old friend (who you know lives in the U.S. but not where) by picking up the phone and punching in 10 random numbers after hitting “1.” If, when this phone call is answered, it is your old friend, then you have won the equivalent of the Mega Millions lottery.

It actually would make more sense to buy 176 million tickets since winning $330 million (more or less) would be almost assured. (However, I doubt if you could find a convenience store that would accommodate such a request.) Although not exactly the same analogy, Michael Graham on local talk radio makes the salient point that, if you had bought every Mega Millions ticket sold over the last 15 picks, you still wouldn’t have won since this is the number of consecutive no-winner drawings.  He adds that he never buys lottery tickets since the lottery is effectively a tax on the stupid.  I guess I have now moved with both feet into this category.