[kinofcain]

Not just nearly identical to each other, they're nearly identical to zero. So your odds of winning are effectively the same whether you play or not.

It approaches 1.0 as you buy more tickets, but even at $800m, the lump sum payout of $491m is still lower than the cost of buying all possible $2 tickets ($584m).

And even if you could buy all tickets you still might have to split the winnings...

[gvb]

+1 for pointing out that it is actually a $491MM payout that you can choose to take as a $800MM annuity over 20(?) years.

You also have to subtract taxes from the payout, which also eats into the payout. I would expect it would be 30% or higher, depending on how much you spend on a tax lawyer (which, of course, cuts into the payout as well).

The only[1] way to win is to not play.

[1] Odds are 292,201,338 to 1 of winning by not playing.