In my personal economic calculus of the value of having a flutter on the National Lottery, it is never worth buying more than one ticket for a single draw
Reducing the odds against hitting the jackpot, from 14 million to 1 to 1.4 million to 1 is not worth £9 of my money
Adam Smith, I now find, had a much more elegant way of putting this
Because a lottery must bring some profit to the organizer, punters win back, in total, less than they put in
So by buying several tickets a punter actually increases the probability that they will make a loss: at the limit, if you buy all the tickets, you will certainly lose money because you win back less than you spent
Related post: The relative risk of winning the lottery
