In the old 5/55 form of Powerball, the expectation value for the lower prizes - the sum of the payouts for each prize divided by its odds was 0.20 total. (This ignores the Powerplay, which I never play).
The new expectation value for the lower prizes has FALLEN to 0.17, meaning that the powerball - even though the probability of winning ANY prize is slightly higher - is actually, predictably, a worse bet than before.
The expectation value for the jackpot varies with the jackpot, and is a function of sales AND odds as well, since there will be a distribution for the probability of number of winners depending on the number of tickets sold.
Single winners are now more probable, but the probability of winning is much lower. (Sales are down on average for all the lotteries I follow overall.)
Since the economy is collapsing and people are temporarily seeking bonds as a refuge (not that this refuge will hold) the ratio of the cash value to the annuity value is at historical highs.
The current "105 million" dollar jackpot currently produces an overall expectation value of 0.50, meaning that the ration of reward to risk is about 0.5. This compares to casinos at 0.9, casinos probably being more reliable than the stock market.
Occassionally, with very high jackpots, the expectation value would actually reach a value close to, or even exceeding 1.0.
The old Powerball twice reached 19 draws, averaging 163,000,000 in sales. This number of sales would obviously not even cover the field under the new, regrettable, conditions. The rollover probability in this case would be around 43% with the new odds.
In order to have an overall expectation value of 1.00, a jackpot with this number sales would have to be at least 320,000,000 annuity (at the current cash ratio.)
My expectation value figures do NOT include taxes.
Since I play according to expectation values, I will be playing less powerball than before.