Post: #26

(01-13-2016 01:42 AM)Skull_Leader Wrote:  It's a "Stupid Tax"

Wouldn't it make more sense to buy tickets for the drawing right after a big win like this one? If you think about it, with $1.5B on the line EVERYONE is buying tickets, and once someone wins it, Most people aren't going to be playing anymore because it's now reset to a "Measly" few Million dollars.
I think I'd rather take higher odds on...say $3M, than ridiculously small odds on $1.5B

Calls its a stupid tax and then puts forth and argument that completely disregards basic math.

Iop890 broke it down correctly. The lottery mathematically makes sense to play after the payout is 2x (since each ticket is 2 bucks) the chance of winning. Odds of the powerball are about 1 in 300 mil. So it makes sense to play after the lump sum award after taxes is greater than 600 million.

You could get more technical and factor in the chance of splitting that with another person, but there's no need to write a thesis on the powerball.

It's 2 bucks, pick up a ticket and use it as entertainment. Pick up a bottle of bubbly, invite a female over, lose the lottery, pop the bottle and bang her. Or win the lottery, pop the bottle, and bang her. That's a lottery win/win situation.

Post: #27

Unless you can keep it a secret and have very few family and friends your life as you knew it will be over. Beggars, thieves and other low life will make it their destiny to get their hands on you and the money.

Post: #28

I used to work at a grocery store and would see moms with 4 mixed race kids use their EBT card to get milk and bread and then pay cash for cigarettes and lottery tickets.

Not a single successful-looking person ever bought so much as a scratcher.

Post: #29

Mathematically speaking, you could almost guarantee winning and coming out ahead with the current $1.5 billion jackpot.

Your odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338. At $2 per ticket, all you'd need to do is buy every single combination of numbers for a total cost of $584,402,676.

If you're the sole winner of the jackpot, you'd come out almost $1 billion ahead.

Even if you have to split the jackpot with someone else, you'd still be $166 million ahead.

And you'd only have to pay taxes on the net gain, since you could deduct the original $584,402,676 investment as gambling losses.

The only way you wouldn't come out ahead is if you have to split the jackpot with 2 other people. But what are the odds of that?

Post: #30

Non-US citizens can win too.

Post: #31

^ might not be a terrible idea, plus the jackpot would increase by about 1/3 of the money you spent so around $200M. There's always the chance that you'll end up splitting with more than just one other person though in which case you'd be screwed

Post: #32

^ Good point. I didn't consider that if you "invested" $584,402,676 buying all the numbers, you'd single-handedly push the jackpot to over $2 billion. In which case, you'd only be screwed if the jackpot was split 4 ways or more.

Post: #33

(01-13-2016 12:11 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  Unless you can keep it a secret and have very few family and friends your life as you knew it will be over. Beggars, thieves and other low life will make it their destiny to get their hands on you and the money.

I read that some states have 'loopholes' that allow you to set up a up a trust or limited liability company to receive the prize. So basically a lawyer on behalf of your trust accept the check so you can stay anonymous.


Either way if you can't stay anonymous then watch the fuck out. You are now a legit target to lawsuits, kidnappings..etc. I would delete all traces of social media, immediately move as well have all my immediate family move, only rent and use P.O. Boxes, and try to eventually change my name as well. You can't win 1.5 billion and not be a target.

Post: #34

(01-13-2016 01:23 PM)Shrodax Wrote:  Your odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292,201,338. At $2 per ticket, all you'd need to do is buy every single combination of numbers

Which is impossible.

Post: #35

The 'stupid tax' line is a bit hackneyed and clichéd. As long as you think of it as a consumption good and not an investment vehicle, for $2 every few months (whenever the jackpot goes over $100m or whatever) you can buy yourself a pleasant afternoon of 'what if' speculation. Cheaper than a movie ticket.

Post: #36

When the Italian-Americans ran numbers back in the 1920s, it was considered "immoral" and made illegal.

Then the government took over numbers running, renamed it "Lottery" and suddenly it became moral. And legal!

This is a metaphor for life in the United States. What Big Daddy Government determines is moral or immoral is whatever they say it is at the time...just because they say so. I have a hard time swallowing their Lottery ads ("Gotta play to win!") considering all this.

There's also the issue of how they made online poker illegal and are now doing the same with fantasy sports. Here in Maryland, officials are "cracking down" on a bunch of fat suburban guys obsessed with baseball, yet allow carnage and mayhem to go unchecked every night in Baltimore City. Profits are their real priority.

So after all that, it's probably needless to say I despise gambling -- so long as it's government-run gambling. I *might* play Lottery if it were citizen-run. But I have no interest it making the lazy, stupid tyrants in government who run it even richer.

Post: #37

$40 for me. I never play, but figured what the hell. I'm not one of these goons playing once a week, it's almost too big not to play... Maybe once in 15 yrs. Worst case scenario I have a good story.

Post: #38

(01-13-2016 09:08 PM)ed pluribus unum Wrote:  The 'stupid tax' line is a bit hackneyed and clichéd. As long as you think of it as a consumption good and not an investment vehicle, for $2 every few months (whenever the jackpot goes over $100m or whatever) you can buy yourself a pleasant afternoon of 'what if' speculation. Cheaper than a movie ticket.

I think this is more accurate. People who spend $30-40 a week on tickets, yes, they are stupid. People who spend $2 every few weeks when the jackpot is high, whats the big deal? I might spend a total of $30 a year on lottery tickets. What exactly am I missing out on by even ``wasting'' $30?

Post: #39

Echo the sentiment that $2 is totally worth all the pleasure I get from daydreaming about what I'd do with the loot.

Pretty sad to see some of my employees wracked with powerball fever though. Have a cook who makes $11/hr (still pretty good wages in this working class area) tell me sotto voce that he and his wife bought $600 of tickets and prayed over the basket they kept them in last night.

Post: #40

I can't wait for someone to win so this story goes away.

Post: #41

(01-13-2016 10:38 PM)booshala Wrote:  Echo the sentiment that $2 is totally worth all the pleasure I get from daydreaming about what I'd do with the loot.

Pretty sad to see some of my employees wracked with powerball fever though. Have a cook who makes $11/hr (still pretty good wages in this working class area) tell me sotto voce that he and his wife bought $600 of tickets and prayed over the basket they kept them in last night.

Everybody is praying! Lets see who God picks as his favorite earthling.

Post: #42

Great comment on zerohedge.com powerball

The real problem is overwhelming people'ss desperation and
hopelessness as they see their future in black, working minimum or inadequate to the cost of living, wage job with no possibility of advancement or facing shrinking retirement income.
It is a great example of resorting to mass magical thinking
as a substitute for independence and autonomy and self-effacement in all historical totalitarian imperial regimes including Roman Empire running lottery daily.

It is another sign of collapse of civilization when people
spend their food or rent money for lottery tickets designed to rob them blind but setting up chances to win billion times lower than a chance of survival after a jump from a skyscraper.
I do not see people, except for some bankers or enslaved
former lottery players, to commit mass jump from the "freedom" tower in NYC as solution to the problem championed by the president.

Lottery is one of many propaganda outfit to keep slaves from
revolt or mass suicide, since it supposedly gives you motivation to survive another week to have another false chance to change fate of a slave. But it is just a cruel lie.
Lottery and all gambling should be illegal since destroys
peoples lives and divide communities and families including those who supposedly win money and 90% of them lost everything, filed for bankruptcy.

Post: #43

Winning ticket sold in SC I hear.

Post: #44

Winning Number: 4 8 19 27 34 and PB# 10

Post: #45

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/14/us/num....html?_r=0

chino hills in California is where a winning ticket was sold.

watch it help Trump when Americans see a Mexican sending gracias a dios for his billion dollar winnings in America speaking rapid Spanish.

Post: #46

(01-13-2016 11:33 PM)Deepdiver Wrote:  Winning Number: 4 8 19 27 34 and PB# 10

Now if I could just go back 12 hours....

Post: #47

(01-13-2016 10:38 PM)booshala Wrote:  Echo the sentiment that $2 is totally worth all the pleasure I get from daydreaming about what I'd do with the loot.

Pretty sad to see some of my employees wracked with powerball fever though. Have a cook who makes $11/hr (still pretty good wages in this working class area) tell me sotto voce that he and his wife bought $600 of tickets and prayed over the basket they kept them in last night.

Damn he nearly spent 3 weeks from his pay after tax... on lottery tickets!! Damn that's crazy

Post: #48

   

I'm wondering if he won... probably wouldn't make a difference in the short turn for him!!

Post: #49

Chances are, if some poor sap won, they'll be broke within a decade.

Post: #50

There's a photo going around of a skater filmer winning the lotto up in Chino Hills, CA apparently his buddy, my friend confirmed it also.

I honestly think it might be fake and they're fucking with people.