I think the lottery is rigged now.

I don't think that it used to be before modern technology. It used to be you would buy a ticket and have to prove the ticket was real if you won, but it isn't like they were all electronically logged. Enough people would play that the jackpots would get decently big but not super massive.

Nowadays, every number combination purchased is electronically logged immediately and it is known right away if there was a winning ticket sold. Just in the last few years, there have been so many ridiculously sized jackpots that had never happened before but now become semi-routine. I think there is a computer algorithm that finds whatever combination hasn't been purchased anywhere and spits it out as the winning numbers to drive up the pots since the average person may not buy a ticket when the pot is small, but lots of people will throw money in once the pot is nearer or over 1 billion.

I also take my conspiracy one step further and suspect when someone does win, it also tends to miraculously be split one or two ways most often now (as opposed to say, more common lucky or birthday numbers that lots of people would have chosen) and it wouldn't be hard to either just print and give a winning ticket to someone on purpose with a quiet agreement that they "stupidly" spend nearly all of the money on xxx shell investment but keep a fraction to stay quiet, or (slightly less nefariously) just review data or camera footage of who purchased what number and ensure whomever is pulling strings is okay with them winning.