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With the tickets doubling in price I am not seeing the huge gains in the jackpot that I expected. Did half the players stop buying? 

I was really expecting it to go to at least 225 million.

I'm guessing that people are not playing quite as much as they were playing.  How many times to people go into a convenient store buy a couple of things and then add a  $1 lottery ticket to round out a $5, $10, or $20?  I used to do that a couple of times a week, in addition to my other plays.  Not as much now.

I'm one of those who has not played PB since the price went up.  A couple of weeks ago I asked for $5 in PB tickets, but when the clerk reminded me that the price of tickets had doubled, I said "Forget it."  I've just stuck to MM and state lottery since.  So over the past couple of weeks, I'd probably have contributed about $20 to PB had the price not gone up.  I'm sure there are plenty of others like me.  But no doubt there are also some people to buy the same number of tickets, regardless of the price.  Personally, I'll probably still buy PB tickets at some point.  I'm guessing it will take at least a cash value of $150million before I'll fork over some dough, whereas I used to do it at about $50 million cash value.

I keep wanting to play but when I think that I wouldn't be happy matching 4 + 0, I say to myself forget it I can wait. I believe the game is designed for huge jackpot players and they do not build jackpot. Besides, people are not spending $1 more for the multiplier. They play the minimum they can to be in the game as there is few $2 million winners. People want to lose as little as possible. like myself, losing is on my mind now when I play.

The recent jackpot progression has been 100, 120, 146, 170, 200. The last time it hit 200 was last October, when the progression was 105, 124, 148, 173, 203 (then 254).  Earlier ones have slighty different jackpot amounts, but similar increases. Since the amount of each ticket sale that goes to the jackpot is now about double it would appear that they're selling about half as many tickets.

According to lottoreport dot com sales figures for the same progressions increased about 21%, 16%, 21% and 16% with the new $2 price.  That would mean recent tickets sales were about 60%, 58%, 60% and 58% of what they used to sell. I'm not sure why there seems to be a discrepancy between jackpot increases and the reported sales amounts, but interest rates have probably changed a bit. If it was easier to look at the cash value we might see that the real jackpot increases are abetter match with the reported sales.

I've played lotteries for years and can remember when the odds printed on the play slips were based on the price to buy all the possible combinations.  For example when Ohio had a 6/55 game and the real odds of winning the jackpot were 1:28,989,675, it was printed as 1:14,494,837 on the play slips since 2 boards cost a dollar and when they later went to a dollar per board with a 6/49 game, the odds printed on the play slips were 1:13,983,816.  Now that PowerBall cost $2 per play I can't think of the odds of winning its jackpot as 1:175,223,510 but rather as 1:3,504,470,020 which makes playing MM and the local lottery more attractive now.

i think you meant  , 1:354,470,020 now

Whoop!, I misspoke as Rommey might say.

Over the years I have seen the values of lottery games jackpots reach the amounts it would cost to buy every combinations but I will really be surprised if a PB jackpot ever amounts to $354,470,020 even with its 30 years annuity plan, but if I do I will buy a ticket.