You get your Mega Millions Ticket?

[TonK]

$380 million take home lump sum.

I'd really feel bad if I didn't play.

 

[IDCHAPPY]

Was hearing that on the news over here, that's a crazy sum of cash .
You can take a lump sum or get it pay up over years can't you? Either way i don't think you could complain

 

[evil wasabi]

you lose 100% of the lotteries that you don't play in?

 

[IDCHAPPY]

I won £2k on the British lottery last year, came in handy for sure. 1 number away from being minted though

 

[TonK]

you lose 100% of the lotteries that you don't play in?

If I win, I'm buying you a GT-R.

 

[evil wasabi]

If I win, I'm buying you a GT-R.

if I win, I'll buy you a yachtmaster 18K.

 

[IDCHAPPY]

I wonder what kind of interest you'd get off the bank on that kind of cash ?

 

[TonK]

if I win, I'll buy you a yachtmaster 18K.

If I win, I'll buy you a German Sheperd.

 

[Sixth]

A lottery ticket isn't so much an opportunity to win millions as it is a tag that says "I never took statistics".

 

[Moon Jump]

It's over 600 mil now. Glad I got myself a couple. Hey, you never know.

 

[Tacitus]

I paid the idiot tax today.

$20 worth... I plan on pissing it all away within 2 years.

 

[evil wasabi]

If I win, I'll buy you a German Sheperd.

you know where you can get one for $50K?

 

[Tyranix95]

If you've got tallent, play sports. (1.)

Got a brain, start a business. (2.)

Feeling lucky, play Lotto.

---------------------
1.
Highest-Paid Athletes 2011 / 2012 – World’s Richest Athletes
2. Most Successful US Start Ups 2008

 

[Yodd]

Got some bad news bitchez, I got this shit locked up.

 

[Tyranix95]

Got some bad news bitchez, I got this shit locked up.

Selecting 5 Normal Balls out of a pool of 56 NBs, and Selecting 1 Mega Ball out of a pool of 46 MBs, equals the probability of 1 Jackpot Combination in 175,711,536 drawings.

--------------------------------
1. 56C5 × 46 = 175,711,536.

 

[Yodd]

I have faith.

 

[cdamm]

I have faith.

you faith will do nothing in the face of my total victoly.

 

[Tyranix95]

I have faith.

Good: 'Cause that data can't determine if a winning ticket is likely to come up closer to draw #1 or draw # 175,711,536.

 

[aria]

This explains why one of my favorite humor sites (on college football) has an amusing article on the horrors of winning the lottery for the unprepared.

This doesn't mean it's bad to win, rather this summarizes all the pitfalls I'd heard about in many other amusing anecdotes --so I hope someone here can put it to use:

OFF TOPIC: YOU'RE NOT WINNING THE LOTTERY. PREPARE ANYWAY.
by Spencer Hall on Mar 30, 2012 1:42 PM EDT

Through some odd and ancient life connections we know someone with a great deal of experience with lottery winners. ANONYMOUS LOTTERY EXPERT has dealt with every imaginable issue greeting lottery winners: tax holocausts, payday loans for millionaires-by-installment, your inevitable drug habit, and an endless stream of family members all demanding exactly $5,000 to solve all their problems in the world.

ANONYMOUS LOTTERY EXPERT offers his thoughts below. Some sums and details have been changed to protect the still-richer-than-you'll-ever-be.

This, in a sense, could be you​

1) The first thing is you have to go the Lottery Office and get your picture taken. YOU WILL BE KNOWN. EVERYONE WILL KNOW YOU ARE NOW RICH. The state does this for advertising, and because they want you dead so they do not have to pay the money. The first part is true, and the second part is speculation. There's an element of sadism to it, but most lottery winners are so dumb they tell everyone anyway.

2) You will NOT get the amount on the billboard. That's a 30 yr payout total. If you take lump sum, you will get about 60% of the billboard, and then the IRS takes 1/3rd of THAT. So you will actually take home about 40% of the billboard.

3) If you take the payout, you CANT GET LOANS. Banks hate lottery payments, cuz they can't take them away from you. So, this is why some winners have tons of stupid cheap toys...jet skis and rims and big tvs...but live in hovels. They can buy silly crap, but never build up the credit to have a nice house. That would not be a concern for the MegaMillions winner, but for smaller winners it is a problem.

4) Most lotteries were historically resisted by liberal/progressives as a TAX ON THE POOR, cuz mostly only poor people buy tickets. This as a practical matter means that the people who win the lottery HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO HANDLE LARGE SUMS OF MONEY.

Example: Winner 1 won $50M or so. His entire family immediately became hooked on drugs, the girlfriends of the sons mysteriously forgot to take their birth control, and everyone got tatoos and new cars.

Example 2: Winner 2 won $800,00.00. He then spent, over the next five years, about $1,000,000.00 on lottery tickets TRYING TO WIN AGAIN.

The damned thing is HE DID. He won like $20M.

Then there are the things lottery winners buy.Examples of things purchased by lottery winners include:

A) Hummer with train horn

B) 2 immensely powerful jet skis for a yard pond about the size of a small apartment

C) A bumper winch for a Cadillac Escalade

d) Automatic weapons. A lot of them.

e) An exotic animal rescue farm

f) A Chevy Malibu specially modified for a handicapped person unable to use their feet and legs to drive. Purchaser could use his feet and legs to drive just fine.

g) Weeks and weeks and weeks at Disney world

h) Drugs. Bail and legal defense for drug dealers.

One more thing while we're talking about lottery weirdness. Most states have a special statute that if you work for the lottery department, or ever have, YOU CAN NEVER WIN. How cruel is that? That's like have starving, famine-thin refugees as chefs.

Crueler still, some states have special protections for certain people, like child support or other state debts. This has led to one example where a man won $100,000 or so, went to collect and GOT ARRESTED FOR BACK CHILD SUPPORT. The Court took his winnings, which were not enough to cover his back child support, and put his ass in JAIL. BECAUSE HE WON THE LOTTERY

Yes, everyone one you know, every family member will all ask you for $5,000. $5,000 is the magic figure that will solve everyone's problem. Dental work? Car repair? Bail? It's all $5,000. And they will ask you for it. $5,000 gets houses out of foreclosure, buys new cars, pays for the birth of babies.

A lottery winner becomes the Wailing Wall, but the faithful try to pull paper OUT.

Security's not that bad an issue. Mr. 50 million's house has been broken into three times. He hasn't been physically assaulted.

Never take the installments. The billboard is a representation of the addition of 30 years of winnings. If you win the lump sum, they give you that lump sum waiting in the bank. Any money manager with even basic skills can get you decent returns.

If you're going to spend crazily, both are a problem. The installments might be better for someone who did this, because you can't run through all of it at once. But the yearly installment plan is really hard when you, your extended family, and all their family members, and even their families and friends ALL QUIT THEIR JOBS AND GOT HOOKED ON DRUGS. You have to now pay them, because you will.

Say that on January 1st you get wired a million bucks of your installment. A third is gone to income tax immediately. Let's say you've got two kids. You want to give each one of the kids $100K. For you to give them that, you also have to give to the IRS in gift taxation. That's another $50K on top of that. So of the million you've got, you've already paid $433K in gift taxes. And then you've got your drug habit to pay for.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAPPEN TO WIN.

1. Don't tell anybody. They might shoot you or take the fucking ticket. That's a very real possibility. That much money and people will go crazy.

2. Make a photocopy of the ticket with your driver's license. Confirm the signature on the ticket is on your driver's license number.

3. Book a hotel in the state's capital. Claim your money at the Department of State. You do not claim your winnings at the gas station. This is a very bad idea.

4. Get out of town. Here's why: the people at the gas station get a cut of whatever the winnings are. They'll know that they sold the winning lottery ticket. If you live in a small town, they'll have a pretty good idea who you were. Rumors will fly quickly. You'll want to miss that.

5. Family? Get some really trustworthy person to blame for everything bad in your life. Give them some kind of role in managing your wealth. Then tell your lawyer to be a dick for you when family members ask for money. It's not totally honest, but if you give people money they will hate you. I don't know why, but that's how it's happened time and time again.

6. Stay small for a year. Do something small. Buy a new car, go to Disney for a week. Make no major life changes for one year. A year seems to be some kind of psychological cleansing period, good or bad.

This is the last point. This is a simple notion: money is the volume of your dickishness. Whatever your dick move is now, money makes it a BIG dick move. All fetters on behavior are removed. You dont rely on anyone's approval anymore. The biggest threat to a person who wins is the PERSON THEY WILL BECOME. This is an example born not just from lottery winners, but also from people I've seen inherit large sums.

 

[Scuz39]

A lottery ticket isn't so much an opportunity to win millions as it is a tag that says "I never took statistics".

I think the reason people are playing this one is that the prize is high enough that it is positive EV.

 

[SouthtownKid]

My wife bought a couple. There's $2 I'll never see again.

 

[OrochiEddie]

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/03/28/us/ap-us-mega-millions-dos-and-donts.html?_r=1&hp
just in case you win

With a half-billion-dollar multistate lottery jackpot up for grabs, plenty of folks are fantasizing how to spend the money. But doing it the right way — protecting your riches, your identity and your sanity — takes some thought and planning.

Making sure you don't blow the nation's largest-ever lottery jackpot within a few years means some advice is in order before the Mega Millions drawing Friday, especially if you're really, really, really lucky.

Q: What do I with the ticket?

A: Before anything else, sign the back of the ticket. That will stop anyone else from claiming your riches if you happen drop it while you're jumping up and down. Then make a photocopy and lock it in a safe. At the very least, keep it where you know it's protected. A Rhode Island woman who won a $336 million Powerball jackpot in February hid the ticket in her Bible before going out to breakfast.

Q: What next?

A: Relax; breathe; take time to think about your next move. Don't do anything you'll regret for the next 30 years, like calling your best friend or every one of your aunts, uncles and cousins. It doesn't take long to be overwhelmed by long-lost friends, charities and churches wanting to share your good fortune. You've waited a lifetime to hit the jackpot; you can wait a few days before going on a spending spree.

Q: So whom should I tell first?

A: Contacting a lawyer and a financial planner would be a lot wiser than updating your Facebook status. Make sure it's someone you can trust and, it's hoped, dealt with before. If you don't have anyone in mind, ask a close family member or friend. Oklahoma City attorney Richard Craig, whose firm has represented a handful of lottery winners, says it's essential to assemble a team of financial managers, tax experts, accountants and bankers.

Q: Remind me, how much did I win?

A: As it stands now, the Mega Millions will pay out a lump sum of $359 million before taxes. The annual payments over 26 years will amount to just over $19 million before taxes.

Q: How much will I pay in taxes?

A: This partly depends on where you live. Federal tax is 25 percent; then there's your state income tax. In Ohio, for example, that's another 6 percent. And you might need to pay a city tax depending on the local tax rules. So count on about a third of your winnings going to the government.

Q: Should I take the cash payout or annual payments?

A: This is the big question, and most people think taking the lump sum is the smart move. That's not always the case. First, spreading the payments out protects you from becoming the latest lottery winner who's lost all their money. Don McNay, author of the book "Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win the Lottery," says nine out of 10 winners go through their money in five years or less. "It's too much, too fast," he says. "Nobody is around them putting the brakes on the situation."

Q: But what if I'm good at managing the money?

A: Invested properly, the lump sum option can be a good choice. There's more planning that you can use to reduce estate taxes and other financial incentives. Others, though, say that with annual payments, you are taxed on the money only as it comes in, so that will put you in a lower tax bracket rather than taking a big hit on getting a lump sum. And you still can shelter the money in tax-free investments and take advantage of tax law changes over the years.

Q: Should I try to shield my identity?

A: Absolutely. This will protect you from people who want you to invest in their business scheme or those who need cash in an emergency. Lottery winners are besieged by dozens of people and charities looking for help. "There are people who do that for a living. Unless you understand that, you can become a victim very quickly," says Steve Thornton, an attorney in Bowling Green, Ky., who has represented two jackpot winners.

Q: So how can I protect myself?

A: Again, it somewhat depends on where you live. In Ohio, you can form a trust to manage the money and keep your winnings a secret. In other states, you can form a trust but still be discovered through public records. And a few states require you to show up and receive your oversized check in front of a bunch of cameras, making it impossible to stay anonymous. Thornton set up a corporation in the late 1990s to protect the identity of a client in Kentucky who won $11 million. "No one had done this before, and there were legal questions about whether a corporation can win," he says. "We were able to hide their names."

Q: Is it OK to splurge a little?

A: Sure, it's why you bought a ticket, right? "Get it out of your system, but don't go overboard," McNay says. But remember that if there's a new Mercedes-Benz in the driveway, your neighbors will probably be able to figure out who won the jackpot.

Q: How much should I help my family and others?

A: It's certainly a natural desire to help relatives in need and take care of future generation. But use extreme caution when giving out your money. Jack Whittaker, a West Virginia contractor who won a nearly $315 million Powerball jackpot in 2002, quickly fell victim to scandals, lawsuits and personal setbacks. His foundation spent $23 million building two churches, and he's been involved in hundreds of legal actions. "If you win, just don't give any money away, because the more money you give away, the more they want you to give. And once you start giving it away, everybody will label you an easy touch and be right there after you. And that includes everybody," Whittaker said five years ago.

 

[Renmauzo]

One of the guys I work with crossed the border at Niagra Falls to get a bunch of tickets. It seems lottery fever has even gripped some Canadians.

 

[neojedi]

I bought a few tickets, but while doing it this commercial kept running through my head:

 

[The King Prawn]

Prawn thought about taking a ride out to state line, but a 6hr+ queue didn't go over so well with Other Prawn.