This was the math behind the Powerball lottery .

This was the math behind the Powerball lottery .

The expected value of spending $2 on a Powerball ticket is actually  -$1.58 when you ignore the jackpot. That's right, the expected value of playing when you ignore the jackpot is negative. 

And while the probability that you in fact win the jackpot is outstandingly small — 1 in 175,223,516 to be precise — the jackpots can grow outstandingly big, which makes it so that at some point, you can actually get a positive expected value.

For instance, when we last looked at Powerball the jackpot had reached a whopping $600 million. If you look at it in the most rudimentary form, your expected value for playing Powerball was not only positive, but also pretty attractive. Because of the ludicrously high jackpot, people could expect to gain about a $1.78 after playing. 

Walter Hickey / BI

One complicating factor, however, is the fact that when you factor in the probabilities of split jackpots, you will decrease that expected value. 

The probability that the winner will have to split the jackpot is also really significant.