I believe the reality of the long odds of winning are hitting home.  Once upon a time I played $5.00 a draw, now I play $1.00  a draws.  I live in NY state, as far as I know their has never been a MM Jackpot winner outside of New York City.  The majority of second place winners, are also in NYC.    The why bother factor has kicked in for me.  I really see myself this time next year not participating at all in the lotteries.

I think that people are so desensitized to money as a result of media exposure to celebrity life, that 100 million just isn't as appealing as 300, or better yet, 400. Would I like to win 100 million dollars, you bet, but I would spend more on playing if the jackpot was over 300 million. And it doesn't seem to be helping that the Mega Millions and Powerball Lotteries have rarely seen large "mega" jackpots in the last year. I think people aren't playing because people are winning when jackpots are too low. Part of playing lotto is the dream, and it's always funner to dream bigger. I think that Mega Millions and Powerball should add a number or two to the pools to decrease the odds of winning even more. What's the worst thing that can happen, a 400 or 500 million dollar lottery that someone would eventually win, and you better believe more people would play with the media exposure a jackpot like that would create. People buy scratch off tickets or play their local lotteries for average jackpots, but I believe people want their multi-state lotteries to give them the mega jackpots they once promised. They haven't been delivering, so people haven't been playing.

Rest assured, $50 million is plenty enough for me, I just get sick and tired of never winning most of the low tier prizes; let alone the jackpot. I have been suffering from "lottery fatigue" for years now. The media hype only comes in now if someone wins hundreds of millions, so it makes anything less than that seem like not as big of a deal. Until you win it.

There's alot of truth to this story, I still play but no more than 4-5$$ a draw $4.00 if it's under 100 million and $5.00 if it's over. I used to play 20-25 a week but the best I ever did was the $3.00 prizes I mean I never won a grand or more. so after all these years I just decided to cut back to 4-5 dollars a draw.

Agreed, the lotteries have brought this on themselves by ever increasing the odds.  Once upon a time 80million to 1 was the Powerball odds, now we are expected to buy in to 145million to 1 odds.  People just aren't as dumb as they would like.  My suggestion is to drop the odds on the regular powerball to 100million to 1 and add a Mini-Powerball game with something like 30million to 1 odds.  This way players can choose from a long shot to a very long shot depending on their personality.  Right now I only have the option to play 145million to 1 Powerball or my state lottery's 500,000 to 1 Pick 5 which leaves me out in the cold as far as having an option that suites my personal preferrence. 

We don't have a Mega Millions but I couldn't imagine buying a ticket with 175million to 1 odds and having an ounce of faith that I could get anything out of it.  Before Powerball went to 145m:1 odds I would start buying at $50 million dollar pots, now I wait for $100 million and I am definitely buying less tickets, mainly because I believe I am throwing my money away at these odds and I need an exponentially greater incentive to play the jacked-up version. 

The mistake lottery officials make is thinking that simply increasing the odds will create larger jackpots which will increase buzz, but that's not how most players think.  Jacked-up odds means a much greater expectation of huge pots which creates a loss of buzz during these long build-up periods.  It takes about a month for Powerball to get up to a $100 million.  Also, with the increased odds PB has fewer winners to annouce each year which hurts them with players.  Buzz is not only created by large jackpots, it seems to be created when the jackpot nears or exceeds the odds of winning.  I see this in every lottery I play.  When our little Pick 5 reaches $500,000 sales start to go through the roof.  Same with Florida's Lotto which doesn't have to reach $30 million before players are ready to jump in.  I think the Mega Millions and Powerball officials have gone in the wrong direction, but I doubt the high paid executives will ever admit their mistakes, more likely they will have to be thrown out for lagging sales before we see a positive change.  I wonder if the officials thought they would raise the odds and people would only notice higher jackpot, but not consider the diminishing chance of a win.

I think this is completely wrong and is the misconception that is killing the lotterys.  Very few people are saying, I am not playing because $100 million simply isnt enough money.  People aren't playing because they don't believe they can win.  The year before they raised the PB odds, the lottery went to $200 million three times and somehow that wasn't good enough?  When I wrote to officials I actually got a reply that the PB only went to $200 million once, because he didn't acknowledge the times it went to $190+ million.

You say add a number or two and I say that if they do that then very few will play until the pot gets to $300 million which means people will be sitting out for months waiting on the pot to build and I would probably never play such a game.  Are you seriously suggesting raising the odds to 200million to 1 to encourage people to play? 

As for people hitting the pots early, you CAN'T stop people from hitting the Jackpot at all ranges of the spectrum, that's what randomness is all about.  People need to be realistic.

I agree. The big jackpot lotteries have such ridiculously long odds that more than a buck or two on them isn't worth it, no matter what the jackpot amount is.....besides, I don't need a hundred million dollars to retire and live confortably. A couple of million pre-tax would be plenty. I don't have a desire to be that extravagant.

Here is a LIST of the reasons for the "cool down":

-There have been so many jackpots over 100 million. When 50 million was noteworthy it was because it was unusual.

-There is an inflation effect. If you want to buy a house for cash you need to win about 1 million (advertised annuity) or more!

-There are always stories (and TV series) about people who won big but were even more miserable after.

-People are tired of buying loads of tickets and then having hardly any matching numbers let alone 2 or 3 on one line, and then find out that 2+bonus pays only 4 dollars.

-People don't buy 100 at a time, they maybe get 5 dollars on a whim. The last several winners played only 5 or 10 dollars.

-After taxes and cash option the jackpot is 1/3 of the advertised amount and people are wising up to this.

-I dispute that it's harder to see large jackpot amounts. They do come around often enough - look at MM right now. If the jackpots don't get quite as high it's because MORE STATES ARE PLAYING and PEOPLE ARE WINNING JACKPOTS MORE OFTEN. But they also keep adding more balls so that it's that much harder to win a SMALLER prize.

-I dispute a lack of interest in the Lottery in general. I still often have to wait a long time for someone to recite 100 different Pickit numbers because they don't want to fill out betslips.

-Remember when not only you had to wait 3 hours on line for Powerball, and you could only get Quick Picks? Do you want to go back to that?