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Consult a statistics major for a formula for this but basically your instincts are correct. Let me give you a crass example to illustrate this theory at work:
Suppose you're an ordinary guy with a job making like $1000 a week, and you play the weekly lottery. And suppose there are two hypothetical lotteries, one which is conventional, you pick six numbers and if you hit them all you win a jackpot, but the house had a massive edge. One ticket costs $1, odds to hit are 1:10,000,000 and the payout is $5,000,000. So your EV per ticket is negative 50 cents. Millions of people play lotteries like this in real life all the time, and a lot of people consider them stupid for it.
The second lottery is a +EV lottery. This time, like before, its $1 per ticket and 1:10,000,000 to hit, only the payout for hitting is $15,000,000. Now your expected value per ticket is positive 50 cents.
Now, since you only make $1,000 a week at your job, the second lottery is only slightly less stupid for you to play with a significant amount of your money, in spite of the fact that it's massively +EV to play. Pretty much the only way to realize that amount of equity is to play a massive number of tickets with a massive bankroll, or to pool bankrolls with thousands of others like yourself.
That is what the Sunday Storm is. A very +EV lottery, that you need a massive bankroll to justify playing for non-recreational purposes. It is overwhelmingly likely that you would never make the final table of that tourney in a human life's span of playing it every week. Sharing 5% with 20 of your friends though could make it worth your while, though.
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