Of all the uncertainties that come with the lottery, one thing is for absolute certain: People love playing the lottery. In fact, each state in the U.S. has its own lottery with the exception of the following seven states: Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada (weird, right?), Utah, and Wyoming. For starters, the United States as a whole made $66,788,035,000 in income generated from all of the states’ respective lotteries. $42,278,889,000 of this was used for prizes, $3,180,173,000 was expended on administration, and $21,352,759,000 was the total proceeds remaining.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s population projection for the entire country in 2016 was 323,127,513. If we divide the total income generated from various lotteries by the total population of the U.S., then each American spends an average of $206.69 on lottery tickets per year. (資料來源)
For LendEDU’s own lottery study, we went to various convenience stores around Hoboken, New Jersey and purchased $1,000 worth of scratch-offs. We bought a certain amount of $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, and $30 scratch-off tickets so that their total values were as equal as possible. Winning percentage was calculated by dividing the number of winning tickets by the total number of tickets. Win value was calculated by adding up the totals from each winning ticket. Return on Investment was calculated by purchase value from the win value, and then dividing that number by the purchase value, and then multiplying by 100. (資料來源)