Why do they change lottery formats?

Asked by srmorgan (6773

) December 31st, 2015

I have not bought lottery tickets in a long while but i got the urge to do so earlier this week.
I started filling out some numbers on a Powerball slip and saw that they had gone from 5 of 59+ 1 of 35 to 5 of 69 and 1 of 26.

I am not a statistician but this could not have changed the odds by very much. Must be a marketing tool but I just don’t get the point of the change,

Any ideas

SRM

lottery

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6 Answers

Who is “they”? Still the same in Georgia.

elbanditoroso (33140

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Apparently the numbers changed in October 2015 to what you said in your question for the powerball. Here

chyna (51298

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Perhaps if people see more numbers they think the odds are better. The lottery Powerball folks thought if they made it more shiny, more people would play. I dunno.

msh (4270

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Variety is the spice of life, I guess.

Buttonstc (27605

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Did they increase the number of prizes as well? That encourages more people to play but costs more

Stinley (11525

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It may be a reaction to the guy who was cheating the system. Iowa was affected, and they are investigating up to thirty seven states to see if they were rigged by him also.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/24/us/iowa-powerball-director-is-removed-in-scandal.html?_r=0

Here2_4 (7152

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