Conditioned on you winning, there are 1+N expected winners. The number of winners is always larger than zero [edit: the following is not correct "and the averag

Conditioned on you winning, there are 1+N expected winners. The number of winners is always larger than zero [edit: the following is not correct "and the average prize is calculated diving the jackpot by the 1+N expected winners"]. Conditioned on you losing, there are N expected winners. The number of winners can be zero and the average prize cannot be calculated dividing the jackpot by the N expected winners [edit: not that you could before...]. [edit: the following is not correct "You have to divide the jackpot by a higher number: the expected winners conditional on having at least one."] No winner, no prize. --- Let's say there are 2 people playing and the probability of winning is 50%. The number of expected winners is 1. If the jackpot is $1000 the "average lottery winner" doesn't get $1000. Three outcomes are possible, with the following probabilities: 1/4 zero winners 1/2 one winner gets $1000 1/4 two winners get $500 each The "average lottery winner" gets less than $1000. The "average lottery winner" gets $750. (Imagine that a lot of draws have happened: for each split jackpot there were two jackpots going to a single winnner. All in all, half the winners got $1000 and the other half got $500.) Consider now that you are one of the two players and you win. The other person will either win (you get $500) or not (you get $1000) with the same probability. Your expected prize? $750 What a coincidence!