Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Are lottery tickets ever a wise investment provided the jackpot is large enough?
Gambling is never a wise investment. Even assuming that the stated odds are correct, there can be multiple winners, and the jackpot is shared between the winners, so the individual payout can be significantly less than the total jackpot. If I were to take a dollar from you and a dollar from your buddy on the promise that I'd give the two of you a total of $3 back if you both guessed the result of a single, fair coin toss, would you take the offer? Note, also, that the "jackpot" value is quite misleading: it's the sum of the annual payments, and if you reduce that to present value it's significantly less.