The lottery games no matter what all require dumb luck at the very end whether is the non-location dependant benefit of Draw Games (at 50% payout), or lower volitility (albeit still rather high) of Scratchers (68% - 76% payout for $5 to $20 games).
I do not think Powerball in general is a popular game despite the 3 jackpot winners in the recent year. Despite the mini jackpot being so high (previous high was for the $590 million draw at $5.2 million without roll over since the previous $425 million draw had a 5/5 winner), the progressive climb has been much slower in the past few months (normally grows $400k or more each draw, but as of late just $200k). The fact that California Lottery still has to be more aggressive with marketing/promoting Powerball shows the lack of popularity of it.
I liked the 56-46 matrix of Mega Millions more than this $2 Powerball. I see the current 75-15 matrix doing better than Powerball in this state.
I've must have played a couple hundred plays at $2 each on Powerball since its inception on April 2013, with the best winning being $7, its not a good feeling to have to only win 4% of your money back.