That arguement would be like saying Microsoft or Adobe products should be less then 20$ because the price of pressing cd's is only pennies.
Lotteries have far more competition from online gaming and small casino's then in the past.
dvdiva:
I can't buy your comparison to microsoft. An overpriced product is still a product. It goes for what the traffic will bear. If it doesn't sell at the price, someone will reduce a price and sell it as New and Used on Amazon, or on Ebay, or down at the corner discount store.
A lottery ticket, on the other hand, is a non-existent product with an extremely limited shelf-life. If it doesn't sell for this draw it's vanished from non-existent into something even more final, whatever that might be.
Casinos are a better example, I suppose. But it's the entertainment industry with a price that can be lowered if the folks flock to the one down the road with a $2 blackjack table and penny slot machines.
Probably PowerBall can increase the dickens out of sales on the current matrix with a bit of innovative thinking. But they'd have to reduce the amount of profit they're pulling off the top and put it into larger jackpots in the beginning draws, increasing the sizes more quickly on the early end. But they'd have to quit thinking inside a box, which they aren't likely to do.
When they were arguing about whether to have lotteries in my State, one of the legislators called it a 'voluntary tax on stupidity'. In a lot of senses he was correct. But the key word is voluntary. They're going to have to make that imaginary product more appealing to the eye of the stupid, and that's going to be difficult, since as you've observed, the stupid aren't so enamored of billion dollar jackpot possibilities with the odds a buzzillion to one against them when gas is 8 dollars a gallon.
Jack