How Much Is a Lottery Ticket Worth?
Ask most people how much a lottery ticket is worth and the most probable answers will be the price of the ticket, the value of the jackpot or simply: “Is it a winning ticket?” The value of a ticket for a forthcoming drawing is none of these. The reason for this is related to a concept of risk and reward many people often fail to grasp, aren’t aware of or ignore at their own peril.
The concept is expected value. This is the projected value based on the probability of a given set of outcomes occurring. If it is possible to assign odds to a set of monetary outcomes, an expected value can be calculated. Expected value is a concept that works in a variety of situations. Investors, for instance, can use historical data to determine the likelihood of being able to fund retirement with a certain savings rate or allocation strategy.
The calculation is simply each potential payout times the odds of having a ticket with the right combination of numbers. For example, the odds of having a single matching number and the Powerball number correct on a single ticket is 1 in 92. One divided by 92 equals approximately 1.09%. Multiplying 1.09% by the fixed $4.00 payout results in an expected value of $0.04. Put another way, if you adjust the value of the prize by the probability of actually winning the prize, you end up with an expected value of $0.04.
