Americans are less interested in a $1 billion Powerball drawing than they used to be — with only about half as many people flocking to buy tickets as a few years ago, according to experts and store owners.
While seasoned lottery players and first-timers would rush to buy a ticket whenever there was a 10-figure jackpot, they have become all too common.
“It’s known as jackpot fatigue. People are less excited about a big prize than they used to be because the big numbers are old news,” said Victor Matheson, professor of economics at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. The New York Post.
Tonight’s Powerball jackpot has skyrocketed to an estimated $1.3 billion after another drawing on Wednesday failed to produce a top prize winner.
It is the fourth largest Powerball jackpot and the eighth largest jackpot in US lottery history. But store owners in New York City told the store it has failed to attract many non-regular ticket buyers.
Huge jackpots are becoming increasingly common in the Powerball and Mega Millions lottery drawings
“They realize it’s going to be a billion dollars over and over again, three or four times a year, so you don’t have to come,” Gautam Das, an employee at a BP gas station in Queens, told The Post. .
“You can take the next one… So no urgency, and no problem.”
He said ticket sales tripled when the jackpot reached the $1 billion mark.
“It’s not like the old days, when people went crazy… They came in and lined up all the way out the door of the station,” he said.
Huge jackpots have become increasingly common in the Powerball and Mega Millions lottery drawings due to changes in the games over the years and more expensive ticket prices.
There have been more than ten jackpots that have surpassed the $1 billion mark since 2016, including four in 2023.
Last week, a lottery player won the $1.12 billion Mega Millions jackpot in New Jersey.
Lotteries are more likely to hit the $1 billion mark than they were a few years ago because the system was adjusted to create lower odds, Matheson told The Post.
A one dollar increase in ticket prices and a spike in interest rates also means that the annuity – as the profit lotteries advertise – is much higher than before.
“They’ve made it harder to win, so you’re more likely to roll over before someone wins,” he said.
“And with interest rates, you don’t have to accumulate that much to get to $1 billion.”
Only half as many people nationally are buying tickets for $1 billion jackpots as in 2022, Matheson added.
There have been more than ten jackpots that have surpassed the $1 billion mark since 2016, including four in 2023
People are less excited about a big prize than they used to be because those big numbers are old news, experts say
George Damoulakis, owner of Evers Pharmacy in Queens, told the outlet, “People still play, but when it cost over a billion dollars… people came in droves! There was a line of people outside my door saying, “I never play, but it’s so high. I gotta, you know, I gotta get in there.”
The largest Powerball jackpot ever, in November 2022, was advertised as $2.04 billion.
According to Powerball, the overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 24.87, based on a $2 game. The odds of winning the top prize are 1 in 292,201,338.
If there is a winner on Saturday, they can choose to receive the prize as an annuity or receive a lump sum of an estimated $608.9 million.
In the game, players choose five main numbers between 1 and 69 and one ‘Powerball number’ between 1 and 26.