The Euro millions has a €240M cap at which the jackpot is divided up in to the lower tier prizes if there is still no winner. The UK national lottery has a cap on roll overs at 5 where the top prize will roll down to the lower tiers if no winner remains.

Because then you wouldn’t get the people who rarely play to throw money in.

The bigger jackpots incentivize those who don’t play for the “pennies” at less than 500 million. They actually reduced the odds of winning a few years ago for this exact reason.

If 100 people have the winning numbers then that’s what’ll happen.

They actually changed it, making it harder to win, to create these giant jackpots. The huge number draws people in.

Funny you say that. There’s about 300 million possible numbers so at $2 per ticket you only need to win over $600 million for the lottery to be plus EV. Factor in 37% tax (which is what Google says is the average rate, but may be different depending on state) you “only” need a jackpot of about 950 million to profit.

I play it. I know that the odds make me more likely to die in the time it would take me to claim the prize than to actually win, but someone has to win it and the lotteries in Europe and the UK give a lot of money to good causes.