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Abstract

There has been little research done on how consumers react to jackpots that first cross the $100 million threshold. Using two sets of time series data, I measure the effect on demand of being the first jackpot in a series of jackpots to cross the $100 million threshold. In both datasets, there is an additional increase in the growth of lottery ticket sales based solely on being the first jackpot to equal or surpass $100 million. These findings are not consistent with the principle of diminishing marginal utility and suggest a psychological significance of the number 100.

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