From what I figure out, here is what is meant by $46($42) strategy: numbers in the parentheses ( ) represents the case of Powerball.
1. ONCE one decides to spend $46($42) on buying MM(PB) tickets for whatever reason and if/when he covers all 46(42) Mega Balls(red Powerballs), he or she does not lose more than $44($39) out of the whole $46($42) spent on buying the MM(PB) tickets. Put it differently in percentage term, given such constraints, one can win at least 4.3%(7.1%) of every $46($42) spent on buying MM(PB) tickets. Note that the difference in percentage numbers between MM and PB.
2. Such difference results from the difference b/n MM and PB in the number of bonus balls and payout for hitting just the bonus ball (0+1), 46MBs vs. 42PBs and $2 vs. $3. It is clear that the strategy of covering all bonus balls is much effective in PB, as compared to MM. Needless to say, one can choose only 1 bonus ball 46(42) times in an extreme case if s/he believes strongly that it would come out, which is a different story.
3. One more thing to note is that covering all bonus balls and thus getting a guarantee for a minimum amount of winnings can not be applied to ordinary P-6 or P-3 games. It is almost impossible! Anyone, please let me know if s/he can guarantee hitting 3 out 6 in NY lotto 6/59 with less than 20 million tickets. Mathematically, it is possible that one can buy 100 million MM tickets and still win nothing, though not probable: that's exactly the opposite extreme of saying that one can buy just 1 ticket and still win it. Of course, as RJOh implies, any further judgment of whether such minimum winnings-to-cost ratio of 4%(7%) of $46($42) is attractive or not, and thus to take it or not, is up to individual players.
4. Except such effect of preventing winnings-to-cost ratio from coming down all the way to 0, covering all bonus balls have nothing to do with, say, the odds and the expected value. As Lotteryplayer noted in a different thread, covering all bonus balls does NOT improve the odds when compared to one's own arbitrary selection or QPs of 46(42) bonus balls. Of course, 46(42) tickets improve the odds 46 times when compared to 1 ticket, unless one inadvertently chose two or more tickets with exactly same numbers for all (5+1).
-Sometimes one's own episodic incidence(s) can not be generalized beyond his or her own unique situations inclusing LUCK...
