I don't play the lottery often either, but I know they changed it so that the odds of winning a lower prize increased, but hitting the jackpot decreased. I had to look this up myself: before you could choose numbers 1 to 76 with the first five balls, and 1 to 15 with the last. Poorer, more uneducated people are more likely to regularly play the lottery, so they most likely thought this meant they had a higher chance of winning, even though this was not the case at all.