If you knew how the Indiana lottery operates you would cease to play or play very selectively. Case and point look at all the closed scratch offs this year with most closed in their favor of a greater percentage of jackpot prizes remaining then tickets remaining. In some cases it's so bad that you can only assume corruption. With the push for higher profits they have gotten more greedy. Overall I wouldn't play that 30 dollar game as you'll lose more in the long run unless you are lucky enough to hit those 500's.
Let me grab the most glaring offenders and honestly could grab them all and do analysis, but this trend keeps getting worse and worse.
https://www.hoosierlottery.com/games/scratch-offs/current-games/2121-hot-5s-hot-streak
Closed with 3/3 jackpots remaining with 59% of the tickets remaining. Must be nice to sell 41 % of tickets and not pay out top prizes.
I personally spent a ton of money on this game and the one above and should sue them for never really having a shot at these prizes.
https://www.hoosierlottery.com/games/scratch-offs/current-games/2062-20-years-of-cash
Closed with 2/3 jackpots remaining with 54.5 percent of tickets remaining. Closed in their favor of 11% on top of what they already make off the game.
https://www.hoosierlottery.com/games/scratch-offs/current-games/2089-$5000-a-month-20-years-of-cash
Closed with 2/3 jackpots remaining with 53 percent of tickets remaining. Closed in their favor an extra 12 percent.
Summary: There's no easier way to push your profits higher by selling a bigger majority of tickets and not allowing your top prizes to go out. This is nothing short of stealing.
How I believe they are able to do this. First on large print games they only take delivery on half the tickets up front. They take delivery on these and get close to the end of the print. At this time they come up with another game that is the same denomination aka 25 dollar game to replace it in most retailers. Once they have most retailers with small displays they have them replace it. At this time the sales of this game plummits which gives them the excuse not to order the next half of the game and to close it early. If you see a trend in all of these games they were half the way through and the games with 3 jackpots had 1 printed jackpot in the first 50% of the print. By ordering games like this they are able to maximize their profit margins and screw over the players in a somewhat immoral, but legal manner.