Lottery Tickets

Question

Your chances of winning the New Jersey Lottery are approximately 1 in 22 million.  Lottery tickets cost $1.  So, you should buy lottery tickets when the grand prize reaches what amount of money?

Answer 1

When the jackpot is $22+ million then your "expected winning is greater than 1/22,000,000 times $22 million = $1 plus

If the jackpot were $44 million, your expected winning would be $2 for a $1 ticket, or a profit of $1

Buy 22 million tickets, and your odds are one ticket will win $44 million for a net profit of $22 million.