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The Mega Millions jackpot is now more than $1 billion – where does all that lottery profit really go?

  • Written by Liberty Vittert, Visiting Assistant Professor in Statistics, Washington University in St Louis

The Mega Millions jackpot drawing on Oct. 23 has soared to US$1.6 billion.

In the middle of the 20th century, when lotteries first started in the U.S., they were sold to states as a way to benefit the American public. That suggests that bigger and bigger jackpots should mean more tax dollars to spend on public services like education. But that...

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