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Mega Millons

Yakoo752 said:
if odds are 1 in 302M, than it's 302M combinations. That's kind of how odds work...

Time is the constraint and why you can't buy up all the tickets.

Also, all it takes is someone else to win it with you and than you're hosed.
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So, you can manually pick your ticket numbers, that is my point. It is potentially feasible to buy all the possible number options (3o2m) which promises a winning ticket.

Time is a limiter, which is why I posted the fact that 7 states allow you to purchase online. The speed of electronic transactions does allow you to potentially bypass that obstacle. You would need a software package that could buy roughly 1,200 tickets per second in between drawings.

Risk is reduced, because your buy in contributes to the pot. A % of your investment becomes a guaranteed return. I don't know if it is 20%, 40% or what, but that reduces risk.

Now if someone else wins, that upsets your gains and is potentially a big loss. It would take some more advanced statistics to predict what they safe venture number is to reduce that risk, but I have been thinking about this ever some jackpots started going north of 300 mill some number of years ago. Interesting.
 
Lump sum option right now is $900 Million. While there have been a few times a jackpot was split between 3 tickets, only once has it been split between 4 (I think, just checked Wikipedia :dunno). So it's a pretty solid bet that if you spent $300 million, for a shot at $900 million, you'd probably come out ahead.

On the other hand, they made Mega Millions tickets $2 instead of $1 now, so the math gets a lot slimmer (spend $600 million for a shot at $900 million, but if even one other person wins then you just took a net loss of $150 million give or take).

Worth it when tickets were $1.

Not worth it at $2.
 
NorCalAthlete said:
Lump sum option right now is $900 Million. While there have been a few times a jackpot was split between 3 tickets, only once has it been split between 4 (I think, just checked Wikipedia :dunno). So it's a pretty solid bet that if you spent $300 million, for a shot at $900 million, you'd probably come out ahead.

On the other hand, they made Mega Millions tickets $2 instead of $1 now, so the math gets a lot slimmer (spend $600 million for a shot at $900 million, but if even one other person wins then you just took a net loss of $150 million give or take).

Worth it when tickets were $1.

Not worth it at $2.
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There are also State Tax factors to take into consideration, but it is getting high enough to where buying the lottery might be a thing to consider.
 
I always get a kick out of people who complain about lottery taxes. You just won xmillion dollars! But you're right, I suppose you were better off financially before that 9-figure tax bill left you with only 60% of a billion dollars.
 
Eldritch said:
So, you can manually pick your ticket numbers, that is my point. It is potentially feasible to buy all the possible number options (3o2m) which promises a winning ticket.

Time is a limiter, which is why I posted the fact that 7 states allow you to purchase online. The speed of electronic transactions does allow you to potentially bypass that obstacle. You would need a software package that could buy roughly 1,200 tickets per second in between drawings.

Risk is reduced, because your buy in contributes to the pot. A % of your investment becomes a guaranteed return. I don't know if it is 20%, 40% or what, but that reduces risk.

Now if someone else wins, that upsets your gains and is potentially a big loss. It would take some more advanced statistics to predict what they safe venture number is to reduce that risk, but I have been thinking about this ever some jackpots started going north of 300 mill some number of years ago. Interesting.
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The lottery would have to allow it. Not sure they ever would. It's along the reasons why in CA you have to disclose identity. They want to make sure there is no impropriety. And remember, if they "let" 1 person do it, they have to let others. It would only happen once before people balk.

But your buy in also reduces your earnings. Too much time to do an ROI but if you aren't seeing sufficient upside, it's still not worth it. Laying out 604M to earn 1B net is worth it but how often do we see this?

A couple of things, assuming independence, the more people who play the odds of someone winning goes up. So the bigger the prizes get the more risk of sharing your winnings.

So than ideally you would want a $1.2 net or a @$2.1B pot, this would ensure if you split pot you would get your money back.

Business Insiders discussed this a few years back
https://www.businessinsider.com/buying-every-powerball-ticket-2016-1
 
Eldritch said:
There are also State Tax factors to take into consideration, but it is getting high enough to where buying the lottery might be a thing to consider.
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Not in California. You are fed taxed at 24%

EDIT:

wait, income tax is 37% at this level (above $500k) so that has to be figured in as well.
 
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You guys are really discussing would it be worth it to buy 300 million lottery tickets to cover all the possible number combinations?

Pretty sure people worth the kind of money you’d need to even entertain a scheme like that...don’t bother with lottery tickets anymore.


Seriously though. If you won all of it, what’s the move? Personally, I think you lawyer up immediately and maybe hire some personal security until the 15 minutes of fame are up. Or is there a way to truly keep it anonymous?
 
TheRobSJ said:
Seriously though. If you won all of it, what’s the move? Personally, I think you lawyer up immediately and maybe hire some personal security until the 15 minutes of fame are up. Or is there a way to truly keep it anonymous?
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In CA you have to disclose. No way around it. The trust to trust doesn't work.

Hire CPA, FA, & Lawyer
You sell all belongings and hit the road for a year.

low key come back and enjoy life
 
How long does it take to legally change your name. You probably have a year to claim your prize.

I'd change my name to The Man Formerly Known as Blankpage.
 
Blankpage said:
How long does it take to legally change your name. You probably have a year to claim your prize.

I'd change my name to The Man Formerly Known as Blankpage.
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Prize must be claimed within 180 days.
 
Yakoo752 said:
In CA you have to disclose. No way around it. The trust to trust doesn't work.

Hire CPA, FA, & Lawyer
You sell all belongings and hit the road for a year.

low key come back and enjoy life
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If you win this jackpot, you could hire some Blackwater mercs to look after you :laughing
 
6 months to keep your head down and get your shit together.

First thing I'd hire is an estate lawyer, tax lawyer, and FA to figure out where to park it all while I spend the rest of my life trying to figure out what the hell to do with it.
 
TheRobSJ said:
You guys are really discussing would it be worth it to buy 300 million lottery tickets to cover all the possible number combinations?

Pretty sure people worth the kind of money you’d need to even entertain a scheme like that...don’t bother with lottery tickets anymore.
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Someone did it once. They had a deal with a whole bunch of mini marts to print tickets. They figured the outlay was worth it over $xxx amount because there's not just the jackpot but all the other winners: $2 for just the powerball, getting all the numbers but not the powerball, and so on. They also eliminated all the highest improbabilities like all sequential numbers. I remember they freaked out because one of the ticket machines jammed or broke and they didn't actually cover all the combinations.
 
Always did wonder where you park all that money. Not like you just have a bank account with 1,200,000,000 in it unless you're Floyd Mayweather and really dumb.
 
I don't think I'd give a damn that everyone knew I won the lottery.

I'm sure that could change actually living it though.
 
Kurosaki said:
I don't think I'd give a damn that everyone knew I won the lottery.

I'm sure that could change actually living it though.
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You ever walk in the TL, where you can't go 4 ft without people begging at you?
 
Does the winner get to decide after the draw whether or not they take a lump sum or go with the payment option?
Lump sum sounds sexy but a payment plan would be the smartest choice for most folks.
 
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