Apparently, this particular lottery was created to pay out a bigger percentage of revenue than other lotteries. That is not entirely a bad idea: if people are going to gamble, it's better that they don't lose too much money.
This particular scheme pays out most of the money to a select few, though, which defeats the point.
Wait for the political fallout when the people funding the jackpots realize all their money is going to out-of-staters and they have no chance of winning anything, ever.
(Yes, I'm pretty sure that's how this will be reported in local media.)
Good question. When I say 'local', I mean the Deming Headlight and the Havre Daily News. You know, all the papers nobody outside a hundred mile radius of the town cares about. The Boston Globe is up there with the LA Times and the Washington Post and so on and so forth, in the national, if not global, ranks.
It makes a lot more sense to just run the Lottery as a raffle (pick one serial number from all tickets sold, or have a fixed amount of sellable tickets), but you can see how states are more enticed by the idea of open-ended ticket sales.
Illinois actually has true raffles a few times a year and they have always sold out before the drawing date.
This particular scheme pays out most of the money to a select few, though, which defeats the point.