Very few people win lottery jackpots, but that doesn't stop millions from buying tickets. Americans spent around $80 billion on lottery tickets in 2016 -- that's about $245 per person, and about $316 per adult.
There's a problem, though: While the potential payoff may be astronomic, the chance of winning it is microscopic. The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot, for example, are 1 in 292,201,338. There are about 327 million people in America, so it's almost like randomly picking one resident as the winner.
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