Lottery mega-jackpots generating less 'buzz'

I agree with this. There's only so much sucking up of $1 after $1 without even a decent win that people feel like doing.  It is not so much that people have jackpot fatigue, have decided the lottery is a bad investment or even that they feel financially strapped, it's that when you lose and lose again month after month for several years in a row eventually it becomes not a very fun game anymore. You get burned out. The prize could be a billion dollars but if you feel you won't win anything it doesn't really matter.  

In the race to the top (jackpot) both MM and PB ground up the matrix way too high and now seem to be paying for having done so.  Good, now maybe they'll learn a lesson.  Call it greed, competition, good business or bad advice from pencil necked number crunchers who don't live in the real world ..... however, this is one aspect of their shortsightedness I've complained about before. 

There comes a time when dangling the carrot while spurring the horse doesn't work anymore.  Since they're seeing a decline in sales, perhaps scaling back the matrix where more people will realize they have a better chance to win, therefore spend more money on tickets just might be what stimulates sales again.  Go back to what worked and brought money in originally. 

If a matrix makes sense and I believe I can win with those odds, I will spend more $$$ per draw.  Mega Millions is lucky to see $2 per drawing from me with the current matrix .... if that much.  Some drawings I simply don't play, period.

Intersting thread.

 From the OP:

 Sales start to skyrocket once Powerball makes front-page headlines.

"Then it becomes a situation where you want to belong," Aubin said.

"You want to take part; you want to participate in this whole discussion: if I win, what will I do?"

No doubt, but my wife and I see that a little differently. We're not in a PB state but our state does border one. Whenever the jackpot gets up there, we have a friend who asks everybody he encounters that day if they're going "across the river", hoping to give them money to play tickets.  He actually has us praying that somebody, anybody, hits it before the next drawing so he'll simply shut up about it.

gutgnt

"People are sick of losing, period. You are so much better off going to the racetrack or casino with your money."

Yes and no. I'll throw a few bucks at a big jackpot and that is that. I'd be furious with myself if I blew a paycheck chasing a royal flush on a vido poker machine or trying to catch a tri-fecta or anything between those two.

Koanne

Excllent post above, excellent points, especially "dangling the carrot". This is one of those threads that I really hope some lottery commissioner is reading. 

Thank you very much!!   They've reached the point of no return already unless they combine into an El Gordo or something equally extravagant.... and I believe that would be a slow agonizing death for both.

Use to be when PowerBall or the BigGame had a jackpot of $200M, Ohioan had to travel just over the boarder and stand in line to buy tickets.  Ohio eliminated that problem by joining MegaMillions and keeping that money in the State.  Same thing happened in Ohio when its SuperLotto game was the best game around and then the surrounding states started their own 649 games, now none of them generate large jackpots.  I don't think people are playing less, there are just more games and more places to play them so there aren't any lines any more.  Jackpot of $200M+ aren't that unique any more also because almost every state participate in a multi=state game that will have a jackpot that size at least twice a year.

At first I was going to agree that people give up and are sick of losing.  It makes sense, since the odds are so high. That was actually my first thought about many players and might be valid, but not for a large percentage of people. People who play mega jackpot games obviously know there's a slim chance they'll win, but it only takes 1 ticket.  I'm also sick of losing for the past 30 years, but that doesn't stop me from buying tickets for Lotto twice a week.  Of course, I admit I am totally addicted to my 4 cards.  I just "know" one of them will hit after I stop.  I do agree with RJOh's comment about the many choices we have now. That certainly could something to do with lower sales if people don't have to go out of their way to play a game with a large jackpot. Maybe people are also simply getting bored. 

Do you think the economy has something to do with it?  Around here it's high season and the stores aren't as crowded and people aren't spending nearly as much as in past years.  Home sales are way down around here (45% in Dec according to the paper) so that really hurts many businesses that target new homeowners like furniture and applicances. I know this is a thread about multi-state games, but it would be the same everywhere.  Sure it's only a few bucks, but it has to come from somewhere. The FL Raffle was a big success, but the reason I mention this is because it is now the busy season here and the lottery has rolled a few times from $3M to $6M to $9M to $14 and now it's $19M.  Not very big rollovers. Usually during the winter months it increases a lot faster.  FL is a parimutel state so jackpots are based on ticket sales, or maybe they are suddenly becoming conservative in their estimates.  

One million ( pardon the pun ) percent, Konane...

They have got to adjust the matrix .

DD

Everyone wants a "large" jackpot, but a $15MM win is fine with me too.
I notice that the Powerball was hit last night for $15 MM.
I'm sure the winner is not complaining..

DD

It really doesn't change your chances. You aren't really playing against the other players, you are playing against the odds of winning. In Powerball, it's still something like 142 million to one that you will have a winning jackpot ticket.  While its paramutuel, and sometimes there is more than one winner, that doesn't happen as often, and still doesn't change the odds of having a winning jackpot ticket.

Exactly. The minimum is, I think, still 10 million. If anyone here wins 10 million and whines that it isn't enough to do anything with, they should consider that most people won't make that much in their entire working lifetime !

Quoting from the article "

"No one is experiencing those [long] lines anymore," Gerald S. Aubin, the head of the Rhode Island Lottery, said yesterday. "I don't think it's a shortage of money. They're just not as excited about a $240 million jackpot as they were 10 years ago."

This surprises this guy? When you listen to the media, and you hear the numbers of dollars being thrown around by the govt when it spends, and how companies are buying other companies for billions of dollars, then 200 million doesn't sound like so much anymore. Especially when you know the govt takes half of it back before you see a cent. ANd especially when people keep playing and don't even get any decent lower-tier prizes. People start realizing they are feeding the lottery and getting nothing back. A lottery game needs to have the bettor win something decent for their efforts on a semi-regular basis. The jackpot wins are just pure luck, but when you get a crummy 3 bucks for hitting the bonus ball only, or like our 6/49 game, you get 2 bucks for hitting 3 of 6, that gets old after awhile. If you could get 10 bucks for 3 of 6, that would at least make you feel like its worth it to continue playing.