I agree with the OP. Playing the national lottery is pointless. I have participated in two such lotteries and won nothing. I have acquaintances who buy lottery tickets once a month and have failed to win the jackpot. Although my acquaintances have managed to recoup their lottery ticket winnings several times. That's all they were able to earn.
Winning something at all is still something mate, your friend(so to say) should be happy, and you should be happy too, winning a jackpot in a national lottery is an almost impossible mission, this is because the national lottery is a game played by millions of people all over the country, from my perspective or should I say observations, the higher the number of players , so does the chances of each player winning the jackpot greatly reduce.
I've come across people that played national lottery for years and never won anything, this is why prefer doing what ever kind of gamble I wanna do, in a private casino(online or offline), not one owned by the government.