Are Lottery Jackpots Excessive?

Can lottery jackpots ever be considered excessive? In the days before lotteries were commonplace, the idea that people would one day be asking this question wouldn't have come up during the normal course of conversation. Back then, the idea of the average person becoming a millionaire overnight with no effort or skill was a dream in itself.

But now new millionaires are made each and every week, thanks to the plethora of state, national and multi-national lotteries that have become so popular. And we're not just talking about people winning a flat £1,000,000. We're talking about winners taking home £5-, £10-, £20 million and sometimes even more.

Many lotteries offer such staggering amounts because they employ a rollover rule. This rule says that if no player wins the jackpot in one lottery draw, the jackpot will be added - or rolled over - to the jackpot for the subsequent draw. With a regular jackpot in many countries offering £4 million or more, it only takes a couple of rollovers to create a jackpot of £12 million. And because more players are attracted by the inflated jackpot, the rollover itself tends to create an even larger pot for the eventual winner.

The reasons why more people choose to play a lottery that has been rolled over aren't particularly difficult to identify. First, there's the simple greed factor to consider. The idea of winning £10-, £15- or £20 million in a matter of minutes is one that many people find irresistible, and even those individuals who don't normally play a lottery game under normal circumstances will be tempted to invest in one or two tickets just in case Lady Lucky smiles in their direction. "You have to be in it to win it," the lottery companies declare, and during rollovers the masses tend to agree.

The other main reason for the surge in the popularity of lottery games during a rollover is that, technically speaking, rollover lotteries offer better value for money. If it costs the same to buy one ticket in a lottery worth £2 million as it does to buy one ticket in a lottery worth £20 million, then the latter has to be better value. Unfortunately, the odds of a player actually winning the larger jackpot don't increase one iota, but at least if you did win you'd have 18,000,000 more reasons to celebrate.

But the big question is, do people really need £20 million? For most of us, our lives could be totally transformed with £1 million, and £2 million would be enough to let us live in good style for the rest of our days. So why do we need the chance to win £20 million or even more? Aren't such rollover and superdraw jackpots just a bit excessive?

When asked this question, the vast majority of people say yes. Most people say that there should be an upper limit on the size that jackpots are allowed to reach, and that money added to the prize pool after this point should be awarded to those winning non-jackpot prizes.

Lottery players all over the globe say this kind of thing, but when the rubber hits the road and massive jackpots are up for grabs, their actions tell a very different story. They tend to buy more tickets than usual, not only increasing their own chance of winning, but also raising the level of the jackpot even further.

So the consensus seems to be that, although we all agree that nobody really needs £20 million, we don't want to miss out on a chance to win such an amount if it's up for grabs. After all, if the excessive jackpot is there then someone has to win it... so why shouldn't it be us?

12 October 2006