Why? Barely worth getting out of bed for 2 million quid nowadays...

Surely if the odds of winning are 1 in 14 million (roughly), then when the total prize fund, not just the jackpot, exceeds £14 million, it is rational to buy a ticket.

I don't quite follow that. Just because the prize money divided by the odds equals the cost of the stake does not make it rational to buy a ticket. Everyone who buys a ticket, apart from the winner, loses their stake (ignoring minor winners). The odds of winning are so miniscule, there is little difference whether you buy a ticket or not. Thus it can never be rational to buy a ticket to get the prize: you don't get £1 of "chance", you get nothing, statistically speaking, regardless of the relationship between the prize, the odds, and the cost of the stake.

But of course, every week, someone does win. For him there is a huge difference between entering and not entering. What you are really buying is the chance to dream a pleasant dream of winning while you wait for the draw. That dream is enhanced by the size of the prize. The price remains fixed, however. So the larger the prize, the greater the number of people who feel the £1 is a fair price to pay for the dream.

>>Surely if the odds of winning are 1 in 14 million (roughly), then when the total prize fund, not just the jackpot, exceeds £14 million, it is rational to buy a ticket.

That's not right. Your odds of picking the right numbers are 1 in 14million or whatever irrespective of how many people enter. The odds are based on the chances of picking the right numbers which is a constant. If 14 million or 100 million people enter then your odds are still the same. The odds of winning are higher if you buy a ticket though. ;-)

Indeed, when the jackpot is over 14 million it’s rational.

Although many economists would say that the pleasure you get from thinking about what you would do if you won, in those few days between purchase and disappointment, are in fact worth the pound you spent.

Then again, there are others who say that they would say that for the alternative is to think that millions of our fellows are mathematically illiterate.

To which others then respond that because winning is such a life changing event, providing sums almost no one can get otherwise, that in fact the odds don’t matter at all.

Which simply goes to show why we should be hacking the hands off economists.

What amazes me is that so many people continue to play this absurd betting game.
For one thing, as has been pointed out, the odds are so enormously stacked against you...it's 14,000,000 to 1 that you will never ever win. And yet the masses queue in droves, holding up the cigarrette counters at Tesco's, much to my annoyance.
Another thing; these queueing masses - have they ever even stopped to really consider what it truly means to become a multi-millionaire, and to be publicised as such? It means that you and your children instantly become the target for gangsters. Which in turn means that, instantly, you have to leave your home and live in hotels and hire bodyguards until your estate agent finds you a suitable country mansion with CCTV cameras, etc. You have to rip yourself apart from your community and become a "Kate Bush" style hermit, in order to protect your children from kidnapping or worse. What a joke! Is that "living your life"? Hell, no. Give me a bet on the Grand National or something any day before I'd ever buy a ticket to this "lottery".
Besides, from what I've heard, the so-called "charitable" grants go to "causes" of such dubious nature that I would never ever support them.
Give me enough money to get by on, that's all I want.

> it's 14,000,000 to 1 that you will never ever win. And yet the masses queue in droves, holding up the cigarrette counters at Tesco's, much to my annoyance.

Heh heh heh. Thanks for that one, Tom.