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...what a frumpy nerd...

That accursed logic! Somebody's gotta lotto - might as well be you.

[AmishDude]

The good professor is not telling the whole story (in the article). Because of the accumulating nature of the jackpot, there are times when it is better to play Powerball. The expected winnings come from multiplying the probability of winning a prize by the value of the prize.

If that is larger than $1, then, on average, you can expect to win more than you lose. (Unfortunately, you also have to account for the probability of sharing a jackpot, which goes up with large payoffs.)

The odds of winning are so slim, that you really shouldn't take out a second mortgage to play all possible numbers.

This happened once, though. I can't find the story, but Voltaire and some philosophes at the time essentially purchased all possible winning numbers.