They didn't really lose money, but they didn't make the 50% profit that they normally do.
For the last PB run that resulted in a winner at $70 million sales for the first drawing were $32.4 million, not including powerplay sales. Roughly 32% of sales go to the jackpot prize pool. That gave them a bit lerss than $10.4 million in cash for a $40 million annuity jackpot with a cash value of about $24.3 million. If somebody had won the starting jackpot the available funds would have been about $14 million short. The 50% that is normally kept as profit was juist over $16 million, so even if somebody had won there would have been about $2 million left over after all of the prizes were paid.
Of course even if they actually lost a bit they still make a fat profit in the long run. Individual runs will be won with fewer or more tickets sold, but in the long run PB expects to have 1 winner for every 175 million tickets they sell. Figuring about a dozen jackpots are won in a typical year they can expect profits of $175 million x 12 jackpots = $2.1 billion.
The point at which they actually make their expected 50% will vary, based on actual sales and the number of winners for lower prizes. As a general rule, $70 million is abit short, and $80 million is a bit past that point. If sales for tonight's drawing are $30 million (it should be reasonably close to that) total sales for this run will be about $156 million. That means $50 million for the jackpot prize pool, and the cash value of the $80 million is $48.7 million.