I've had this thought sloshing around in my noggin for a while. Hoping to plant the seed of an idea into the head of all the lottery officials out there. It's just a crazy idea afterall.
My analogy is that all the multi-state lottos are like a 3rd party candidates to each other. They are competing against each other and thus keeping the jackpots low. That's my theory. They should join. There should be one nation wide lotto, available in all the states that currently have lottos anyway. This relates to another state and city lotto idea I have, and thought that I could create a system to make them all similar. State and city lottos would be available only if that locale wants such a thing.
In English, city = 4 letters, state = 5 and nation = 6. Perfect, I'll use 4/5/6 in my idea. Let's have city games where they pick 4 numbers from a pool, states pick 5 numbers from a pool, and national picks 6 numbers from a pool. How large is the pool? That depends on the population of the locale.
Let's say Los Angeles wants a city lottery. The population of LA is approx. 3.9 million in 2013. The nCr for Los Angeles would be 100C4 = 3,921,225. This way the odds roughly equal the population. It's up to the city if it wants to run such a game. A smaller city, such as San Luis Obispo, with a population of approx 46,377 would run a 34C4 = 46,376. Yes, it took a long time for me to find a population that nearly exactly matched.
Follow the same logic for states. Cali, with a population of approx. 38.8 million in 2014 would run an 87C5 = 36,949,857 until their population reached ~39,176,000 when they switch to an 88c5.
The US national lotto would be an 80C6 = 300,500,200, which closely matches the approx. population of 318.9 million in 2014. When the population grows enough, they switch to an 81c6.
I would imagine that the frequency of changes, requiring new cards, scanners, etc, would put off some people. I think this best suited for online play only, or at an electronic lotto keyosk/vending machine. Maybe the registration of lotto players would be a great way to invent a voter registration as well. Who knows? Maybe the states can get both ideas implemented for the same price. I'm either full of ideas or full of it. :-)
Maybe the pool is too large in these examples? Maybe the pool should be 1/2 the population?
I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks, and good luck!