What can you do with 100M that you can't do with 10M?
The last time the powerball was over two hundred million, people here waited in line for hours to get tickets. Other came in from out of state to "play". Even if it is assumed that these people make minimum wage, the cost/payoff ratio is worse than that of normal powerball ticket.
Who are these people that come crawling out of the woodwork when lottery jackpots hit record levels? Perhaps they consist of multi-millionaires, people to whom another one million is pocket change, but one hundred million is significant; lottery connoisseurs who wouldn't be caught dead winning a mere five million dollar lottery; bandwagon trend followers who play because everyone is (but who starts the trend?); seasoned blackjack players, poker buffs, and sports bettors who recognize a +EV bet. Those don't seem like the kind of people who would wait in line for hours to buy a lottery ticket though, nor would they spend the better part of a day on the highway for a one in eighty million chance of a payoff. Maybe these people make the news not because they're everywhere, but because they're so uncommon. The alternative is almost too depressing to even mention. Is it possible that we're a nation of schlemiels?