Reporting on big Powerball Jackpots - Lies!

Whenever there is a big lottery jackpot, the newspaper will run a story that says this in it somewhere

(From the Reuters story on the $400 million Powerball drawing Wednesday)

"Chances of winning the big prize, regardless of how many tickets a typical player buys, are one in 175 million, the lottery said."

This obviously is inaccurate (unless I am seriously confused) so why is it reported, and why is the lottery saying it?

Just a mistake I think. If you buy two tickets you have 2 chances in 175 million. Unless you specified the same numbers for both tickets in which case your chances of winning would 1 in 175 million with a larger share of the jackpot should you win.

How do you account for the possibility of a jackpot split when trying to calculate whether buying a ticket is +EV, how do you determine the odds of a split without knowing precisely how many people will play?

Quote: darthxaos

How do you account for the possibility of a jackpot split when trying to calculate whether buying a ticket is +EV, how do you determine the odds of a split without knowing precisely how many people will play?

The Wizard has previously done a detailed analysis of this subject. Here is one link discussing his conclusions: Optimal Powerball Jackpot

Quote: BleedingChipsSlowly

Just a mistake I think. If you buy two tickets you have 2 chances in 175 million. Unless you specified the same numbers for both tickets in which case your chances of winning would 1 in 175 million with a larger share of the jackpot should you win.

It's just a mistake that seems to be made often. And I wonder why...

Quote: FinsRule

It's just a mistake that seems to be made often. And I wonder why...

Every story with that error cites Reuters as the source and Victoria Cavaliere as the author. I would guess it's just a case of cut-and-paste journalism.

The Reuters article Powerball lottery prize soars to $400 million already has a comment pointing out the error, but the horse is out of the barn for this one.

Quote: BleedingChipsSlowly

Every story with that error cites Reuters as the source and Victoria Cavaliere as the author. I would guess it's just a case of cut-and-paste journalism.

Cut-and-paste journalism. Sad.

The media sucks so bad on gambling stories sometimes I wonder if they're paid extra for inaccurate information. A casino PR guy says $250 coin-in costs people $25 and it's either a misstated quote or poor verification. Try telling the reporter they're wrong and crickets.

The article is a piece of trash. Obviously Victoria Cavaliere was tasked with ginning up something and did a bare minimum. She attributed the false statement identified in the OP as "the lottery said." There are 43 lotteries participating in Powerball. She stated the winner of the largest Powerball jackpot "took home $590 million before taxes." Not true: the winner opted to take the lump sum cash payout of $370.8 million before taxes. The crappy article was reviewed by editors Ellen Wulfhorst and Nick Zieminski before publication. I not be suprised by such slop in my local newspaper, but I am disappointed to see it in a Reuters article. I am doubly dissapointed that it remains uncorrected after the error was identified on their own web site days ago. Sad, sad, sad.