Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a computer science professor in the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A data scientist, he uses his expertise to address issues in public policy and explore sports analytics. This column was written for the Chicago Tribune.

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 ac

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