There was still risk to them. If anybody else had a winning ticket, they only get half the prize. If two people had winning tickets, they'd have lost money on t

There was still risk to them. If anybody else had a winning ticket, they only get half the prize. If two people had winning tickets, they'd have lost money on the venture. People still see it as weird that somebody can guarantee a "win", but their expected returns on a dollar are the same as anybody else's -- and it's still negative. It nonetheless unnerves people that the prize can reach a point where it is mote than the cost of a complete set of tickets. They say that lotteries are a tax on people bad at math. This is yet another example, though this time it works against the people running the lottery. The house still wins, but fewer people want to play.