Two winners in Missouri and Texas split the $1.787 billion Powerball jackpot (with a cash option of $820 million), which is the second largest ever recorded. The Mega Millions lottery jackpot is also quite large, reaching over $358 million (with a cash option of $164 million), as of Monday afternoon’s estimate. All these numbers are far beyond what the average person buying a lottery ticket can imagine. Yet jackpots of these magnitudes are more about marketing and selling tickets, not about acquiring wealth.

To put these numbers into perspective, a person who earns $100,000 per year over a 40-year career will earn $4 million during their lifetime, far less than either of these jackpots.

The dream of winning a lottery jackpot drives people to use their hard-earned money to grab

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