For the first time the expected value of a lotto ticket is greater than its cost

The Guardian quotes Adam Rivers of KPMG as saying, “You’d need close to all 50 million eligible people in the UK to purchase at least one ticket in order for the expected value to go below the £2 purchase price”

The Telegraph reports that 47 million tickets were sold. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12089331/lottery-resu...

Isn't it false to say "the expected value of a lotto ticket is greater than its cost" as opposed to "the expected cumulative value of all lotto tickets is greater than their total cost"?

Because, a given ticket can only have the values of jackpot (or share thereof), intermediate prize (or share thereof), or zero (most being zero).

This wouldn't be the first time; positive EV lotteries have happened often in the past.

Interesting, but it shouldn't change people's behavior that the expected value is positive. If you buy lottery tickets just for fun, then you will still buy it, but if you are considering buying it for the utility it will generate it still has a negative expected utility (because any amount of money over say - 10 million Euro - has incredibly small impact on your happiness, whereas those 2 pounds you spent on the ticket have a much greater effect on your utility).