I don’t understand because not that many people actually buy these. I don’t understand where they get such large sums of money so often.
In: Economics
More people buy than you think… typically 1/2 the money raised on ticket sales go to the prize, and 1/2 goes to the government/government agency who benefits from the lottery sales. Prizes get large when nobody wins a drawing and the pot rolls over multiple times. As the pot gets bigger, more people buy tickets and it begins to snowball.
Also, note that the actual amount collected to get to the prize amount is less than the advertised amount because it’s generated through an annuity that pays out over 20 years. So $300m annuity bought that pays out annually might total $500m that’s advertised as the prize amount — that’s why the lump sum is lower, they basically give you the amount that they’d spend on the annuity.
>I don’t understand because not that many people actually buy these.
…Quite a few people buy these, and many buy multiple tickets. Further, the prize compounds after each round without a winner.
You don’t instantly get $500 million if you win it. And people don’t win it every time, either.
Either they push the annuity on you (paid out over X period of time) in which case they hold onto the majority of the funds which they can invest for nice returns and then pay you out over a long time
Or you take the cash deal which means the $500 million is significantly discounted.
When they’re holding the funds, they can pool a ton of money into investment and use that to fund winner payouts
Many, many people buy tickets. The money given out it typically half of the money that comes in. The other half goes to schools or whatever.
When you say not that many people buy these, I’m assuming you’re referring to the $72 Billion dollars spent by Americans buying these tickets each year.
The winnings come from a portion of sales. The rest goes into public programs depending on location. People don’t hit the jackpot every cycle either.
Many lottos that have really big jackpots dont have winners. For example in my home state of MA we have a tri state lotto called Powerball. Winners are drawn twice a week, but often no one wins. When no one wins the pot continues to grow. So every once in a while the jackpot gets really large, and that encourages a lot of people to buy in and play.
To your point however, a ton of people play lotto. Many more then you think and many put a lot of money into it. Lotto makes money for its state and will usually fund feel good projects like schools to help justify how much money they generate for the state.
Lots of people but Tickets which Deeds into the jackpot, excess money goes into their Pockets.
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