Quote: Originally posted by twisted on October 26, 2004
First you say that people wont but tickets until the econdy gets better, and on the other hand you say that people tend to buy more tickets when they are going through rough times. If you look at lottery sales from the past 4-5 years you will notice that the sales have actually gone down (when jackpots are at higher levels). So if you are saying that people tend to buy more tickets when times are bad, then theoretically the sales should be higher at the higher jackpot levels today.
I dont think that higher sales means that jackpots will be hit more often. I think it just means that the jackpot will get to a higher level faster.
I think you understand what I am trying to say. Even though I am kind of contradicting myself by saying what I said in my earlier post, let me try to explain a little bit. First of all, when the economy is good, the old saying of "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer" applies. Meaning that when the economy is good, there are going to be more people who are in the upper middle class (both blue and white collar) and on down who are going to be buying lottery tickets than the people who say, make $125,000/year and on up. And, at the same time, when the economy is bad, more middle class and poverty stricken people aren't going to be buying lottery tickets, and if they do, not as many. Whereas, more of the upper-middle class and on up people are still going to be able to buy lottery tickets. Now think about the numbers of people in each "class" of people. Naturally, there is a huge number of people who are in the middle class and poverty stricken classes. So of course lottery sales are going to be down the last several years. Why? Because more people who were well off a few years ago are buying tickets now, rather than the people who couldnt afford them in the first place.
On the other hand, and totally contradicting what I just said, chances are that the people who wouldnt normally buy lottery tickets are buying 10+ tickets at one time, instead of 1 or 2 tickets at a time. Obviously, this is all very vague, and I havent explained everything in great detail, but hopefully you get the point.
There is more, but there is a lot of it that I dont understand, and am not going to try to explain, but it deals with how the MUSL sets the Powerball annuity for a drawing, and how the current government bonds affect it. However, you can go to www.musl.com and it explains it there.
Kansas Gambler