Not sure I'm calculating the odds on this correctly, cause, well it's a scratch ticket and they have terrible EV, but this one in particular costs $1 (which are supposed to have the worst EV of all)

http://www.masslottery.com/games/ins...e-26-2012.html

To determine EV I took the odds multiplied by the total prize - example:

Odds of winning $2 are 1 in 30, so (1/30) * 2 = .0667 then added them together - is this totally wrong and if it is could someone please tell me the correct way to go about determining EV with the given statistics?

It looks as if you're double counting. For example, lines 248 through 250 (those in parenthesis) appear to be combinations that are represented in line 247 and should not be counted separately.

Edit: Otherwise, yes -- you're doing it correctly. The information provided by the state is often cryptic, at best.

Hmmm... That's the way it's listed on the website - if they list it like that (meaning there's only 5,040 $100 prizes and not 20,160 $100 prizes) that's super scummy - You're probably right though

Ah -- you're not correcting for the number of tickets. There are 10 major prizes, meaning there are (C245 * E245) total tickets.

For EV use = (B * C) / (C245$ * E245$)

Actually on the website it lists the total number of winners as 8,316,770, which is exactly what I get when I run a sum(C245:C278) so this gives me at least a shred of hope lol

Would the total number of tickets matter here because they're already accounted for in the probability? - it says all the stats are based off sales of 40,320,000 tickets.
(4,320,000 * the 10 major prizes)

Yes, but the total # of tickets is 10 x 4,032,000 = 40,320,000
40,320,000 / 8,316,770 = 4.848

Use the same total # of tickets for every line.

E.g., EV on line 257 ($20) = B257 * C257 / 40,320,000 (or denominator = C245$ * E245$)

I just ran it and got the exact same numbers for EV on every line

I see what you mean -- your cell G280 is clearly wrong.

Check cell G280 =SUM(G245:G278)

Yuuuup you're right it was taking into account way more cells than I wanted - corrected comes out to 0.6982 so just another standard lottery ripoff... damn lol

Actually -- that's a pretty good payback for a state lottery