I think the irony is that from the organizer's point of view, it's essentially working as intended. The "windfall" mechanic was supposed to make rollovers more enticing by increasing the payout amounts for everyone. The only reason to make a lottery more enticing is to sell more tickets.
So they sold more tickets, and made more payouts on lesser tickets. Exactly as they planned. The lottery doesn't actually lose out - it's just emptying the pot (which was filled in previous games) in return for increased sales.
It's the old adage "the house never loses" - if 50% goes in the pot and 50% goes in their pockets, it doesn't matter who wins the pot - their 50% doesn't change. If a mechanic creates an incentive for more sales, their take increases. Fantastic. But if popular perception becomes that the game is rigged, less people buy tickets - and their take decreases.
(We had an office draw that'd run for months at a time, until someone eventually won. But we wouldn't take new players until the pot had been emptied, as someone joining for the last 2 rounds and winning everything, lost us more players than we gained. That is essentially the long-term risk here too. 10 people paying in until one of them wins, feels fair. 10 people paying in until the 11th wins, doesn't. And when the game stops feeling fair, you start to lose the feeders that fill the pot in the first place.)
That's the disconnect. Each draw's odds are independent, but each draw's winnings aren't.
So there's a collectivism that goes into a growing pot. This is the only thing that really makes a "rollover" enticing to players. If each draw was an isolated incident, the "windfall" mechanic the article describes would be in place for every draw. So a collective pitches in, and the pot is distributed amongst the collective's members (the players) according to how successful each ticket is. So if there's no 6-number winners, there's more left in the pot for the 5-number winners. If there's 5-number winners, there's more left in the pot for the 4-number winners, etc.
(Either that, or the house makes out like bandits. State lotteries are usually regulated to keep a distinction between the pot and the profit, hence such pot-emptying mechanisms.)
But if the pot rolls over - it's not distributed, but added to the pot for the next draw - you now have more than one collective. One collective that's contributed to the pot (over n draws), and one collective that participates in the winning game (over 1 draw). And if there's a significant disconnect between the two, then yes - as one commenter put it, sour grapes. It's the difference between feeling like you've lost a fair game, and feeling like you've been hustled.
Technically it makes zero difference. But if it makes people less inclined to play in future, then it's bad for the long-term health of the game.
It becomes an issue because you introduce humans and human emotion into something that is only viable because of the emotional draw that gets people to play. That emotion feels betrayed... feels so the actual facts aren't relevant... then they don't keep playing and the game dries up.
It's an issue because of "sour grapes". The people that had been in the game longer feel the newcomers didn't deserve to win. Feeling that way led them to no longer play - and that is the issue. Fewer players = smaller pot = fewer players = smaller port = fewer player.... you get the idea.
So they sold more tickets, and made more payouts on lesser tickets. Exactly as they planned. The lottery doesn't actually lose out - it's just emptying the pot (which was filled in previous games) in return for increased sales.
It's the old adage "the house never loses" - if 50% goes in the pot and 50% goes in their pockets, it doesn't matter who wins the pot - their 50% doesn't change. If a mechanic creates an incentive for more sales, their take increases. Fantastic. But if popular perception becomes that the game is rigged, less people buy tickets - and their take decreases.
(We had an office draw that'd run for months at a time, until someone eventually won. But we wouldn't take new players until the pot had been emptied, as someone joining for the last 2 rounds and winning everything, lost us more players than we gained. That is essentially the long-term risk here too. 10 people paying in until one of them wins, feels fair. 10 people paying in until the 11th wins, doesn't. And when the game stops feeling fair, you start to lose the feeders that fill the pot in the first place.)