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Mega Millions jackpot is $540 million tonight

Is this one where you pay like 50% in taxes and then you only get $540m if you take it over say 20 years otherwise its reduced to like $300m if you take it as a lump sum? I always thought that kind of lottery is quite misleading! That said, I wouldnt be complaining if I actually won it - just that advertising it as $540m is misleading! :)
 
This lottery drawing is a scam....

Tell everyone you know (Canadians included) not to buy a ticket.

My wife got duped into buying 10 tickets and I don't want to see anyone else fall into this unfortunate trap.

If you or anyone you know has already bought tickets....Collect them and send them to me....I will collect as many of these tickets as I can and see that they are properly disposed of.

















Just kidding....We usually don't play the lottery but with numbers like this, we figured "why not?"

I have dreams of adopting Big Ernie McCracken's attitude after he won the championship.
 
I'll buy a ticket on the way to work today. Just one though. It'll be a quick pick. No magic numbers for me. All you need to win is one.

My first purchase with a substantial win but not a crazy huge win will be a new car, 'cause I surely need one. Then the bills get paid. Then a new roof. Then a Genz Benz 6.2 Shuttle with a 1x12 cab, just because I want one.

I'm happy with my Squiers, but a really big win means a trip to the Custom Shop for sure.

iJazz - I'm easily pleased.
 
Its fun. I never expect to win anything (I basically have no 'luck') but it gives you the chance to dream about what you would do with it if you hit.

In our office, a bunch of people put in a buck for the last drawing, and they ended up with 30 sets of numbers. The big winning was $9 bucks. They rolled that into 9 new numbers for tonight's drawing for the 30 people. Then they collected another round of dollars for tonight, and we'll have another 30 or so sets of numbers. So, everyone in the office can talk about what it would be like to win and what they'd do, and fantasize about the whole office being empty if one of the numbers did win. :)
 
Lotto.jpg
 
I find it funny that people flock to buy tickets when the jackpot gets huge. Like 5-10 million wouldn't be enough.
So true. I'm guilty of that.
I tossed $5 into our office pool (only five people, so there's 25 tickets) and I'll probably buy a couple on the side for myself. When I think about all the basses I've bought new and then sold at a steep loss, $7 doesn't seem like that big a deal.
Incidentally, the lump-sum payout on $540 million is $389 million.
 
I have my ticket. All the numbers have sold out so there are probably going to be multiple winners.

I usually think that I'm not going to win and can't stand the people who say "Of you're not going to with that attitude" as if that would really help my chances.
 
When it gets this high, it is actually a pretty good bet on a risk/return basis.

As Dave points out the lump-sum amount is $340,000,000 - in Massachusetts the combined federal+state taxes would be 40%; so your after-tax would be $233,400,000 on a 1 in 175,000,000 chance at the big money - it is not often that you get better than even odds on a lottery and that doesn't take into account the chances of winning smaller amounts. The unknown factor is that with this many players; there is a reasonable likelihood that there will be more than one winning ticket. If that is the case, I won't be too broken up if I have to share and only pocket $116,000,000 or $78,000,000. ;)

I tend to only play $1 or $2 when it reaches big jackpots and the risk/reward is not too skewed in the lottery's favor. This one and last week, I went for $5. It is a nice daydream.

Good luck, it would be great to see that amount of money circulating in the bass community.
 

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