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Old 3rd March 2012, 05:40 AM   #6
Dan O.
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 13,594
The value of money is not linear. People with no money are willing to work all day to earn a minimum wage of about $50. Give those same people $10 million and see how many of them don't give a damn about that $50.

The difference between buying 38 million tickets in one draw and buying 1 ticket in each of 38 million draws is in the latter case there is a 38% chance of not winning (actually 1/e or about 36.79%). Although it averages out with a probability of winning multiple times, your value of the multiple jackpots will probably not cover the loss.

To look at it another way, if you had just won $10 million, would you take an even odds bet for double or nothing?
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