Who Needs An Extra 26 Million?

When you have two similar products, say, Drano and Liquid-Plumr, that are thought to be of the same quality and are often sold next to each other, it's rare you'll see much price variation. Even a cent or two difference would be decisive to a large portion of consumers.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking until I was at a newspaper stand yesterday. It's an outlet, like so many other places, for California Lottery tickets. And they list the latest prize money available.

Apparently, there are two big lotteries going on, Mega Millions and Super Lotto Plus, but they're the same sort of game. However, the payoffs aren't close. As of this writing, the former is worth 40 million and the latter 66 million. Since it's just as easy to get one ticket as the other, why would anyone not go for the bigger sum? (Eventually, someone will win and I guess that's when everyone else would switch to the other game.) I know, it's illogical to buy a ticket in the first place, but as long as you're gonna do it...