Powerball reaches $1.3 billion Discussion Thread

[Wilkia]

With no winners for Saturday's drawing, the Powerball reaches an estimated $1.3 billion for next Wednesdays drawing, a number larger than the GDP of Guinea-Bissau. With a cash value of $806 million, an all time record jackpot. To win the jackpot, all six numbers must be correct. The first five can be in any order, but the sixth must be the red Powerball number.

What would you do if you won? How would you spend it? Personally I quite frankly don't know what I would do with that much money. I assume that a jackpot that high could only be a curse and drive me into a lonely and secluded life.

Source: Powerball

[Dazchan]

With no winners for Saturday's drawing, the Powerball reaches an estimated $1.3 billion for next Wednesdays drawing, a number larger than the GDP of Guinea-Bissau. With a cash value of $806 million, an all time record jackpot. To win the jackpot, all six numbers must be correct. The first five can be in any order, but the sixth must be the red Powerball number.

What would you do if you won? How would you spend it? Personally I quite frankly don't know what I would do with that much money. I assume that a jackpot that high could only be a curse and drive me into a lonely and secluded life.

Source: Powerball

The Australian Powerball is only at $3 million. Clearly I'm playing in the wrong country.

I'd be happy to win a mere $400,000, which would ensure that my house was paid off and thereby increasing my disposable income by about $800-900 per fortnight. I'm practical like that.

One thing I'm not understanding is why a jackpot of $1.3 billion has a cash value of $806 million. I'm assuming you pay tax on lottery wins in the US and that's the cause of the difference?

[Stormaen]

That's an astonishing amount of money. The British lotto reached its highest ever jackpot yesterday and that was something like £60 million.

To be honest, I look at that figure and think, "That's too much money for someone to win." But then, I'd probably think differently if I won it. Hopefully, like a thousand people win it or something and a smaller (but still vast amount) gets shared out amongst many people rather than won by a single person.

Edit: Does this lottery have a charity side like the UK's does? Any charity attached to a $1.3 billion rollover would do quite well.

[Wilkia]

With no winners for Saturday's drawing, the Powerball reaches an estimated $1.3 billion for next Wednesdays drawing, a number larger than the GDP of Guinea-Bissau. With a cash value of $806 million, an all time record jackpot. To win the jackpot, all six numbers must be correct. The first five can be in any order, but the sixth must be the red Powerball number.

What would you do if you won? How would you spend it? Personally I quite frankly don't know what I would do with that much money. I assume that a jackpot that high could only be a curse and drive me into a lonely and secluded life.

Source: Powerball

The Australian Powerball is only at $3 million. Clearly I'm playing in the wrong country.

I'd be happy to win a mere $400,000, which would ensure that my house was paid off and thereby increasing my disposable income by about $800-900 per fortnight. I'm practical like that.

One thing I'm not understanding is why a jackpot of $1.3 billion has a cash value of $806 million. I'm assuming you pay tax on lottery wins in the US and that's the cause of the difference?

The difference is in the annuity value and the straight I'll take my money now value.

The value does not include tax, as each individual state tax varies.

Normal average Powerball jackpots are around $200-300 million a piece for reference.

[Wilkia]

That's an astonishing amount of money. The British lotto reached its highest ever jackpot yesterday and that was something like £60 million.

To be honest, I look at that figure and think, "That's too much money for someone to win." But then, I'd probably think differently if I won it. Hopefully, like a thousand people win it or something and a smaller (but still vast amount) gets shared out amongst many people rather than won by a single person.

Edit: Does this lottery have a charity side like the UK's does? Any charity attached to a $1.3 billion rollover would do quite well.

Charity or not is up to each state, my state of Minnesota uses the tax revenue for natural conservation and wildlife conservation.

[Zoo Trouble]

What would you do if you won? How would you spend it?

Cocaine and hookers.

[Saiwania]

I'd have enough after taxes to move to Iceland and hire surrogate mothers to have the 7 children I'd like, along with a lavish estate. And I could ration the rest to last until I die. Yep, I'd sure be set.

[Reploid Productions]

I'd probably take the "cash now" value, give a chunk of it to a financial investment firm, and toss the rest into trust funds to pay out a set amount of money per month or so to specifically prevent myself from being stupid with the money while also taking great care to make sure it's protected from golddigging legal challenges. Probably buy myself a nice but not extravagant house, the funding to remodel it to my specs (including a hobby shop with all the tools I'd need for my crafting, model kit building, and cosplay work!) a badly needed new car... probably also set up trust funds to pay for my cousin's daughters' college. (Not having kids of my own, I'm happy playing "crazy aunt" to my cousin's girls. ) Maybe buy up a few apartment buildings to generate revenue.

Oh, and I would totally be that evil goddamn asshole who would wait until the very tail end of Desert Bus for Hope one year and then drop a huge chunk of cash to buy a couple more hours of their suffering when they're thinking it's almost over. Sadistic and for a charitable cause!

[Dahon]

I can buy lots and lots of books, start up preservation societies (Middle Eastern artifacts, incunabula, scrolls, Pinoy movies... the list must go on), start an extensive reforestation program, help the government pave roads to far-off barrios, et cetera.

Et cetera.

[Frank Zipper]

I'd make sure Trump doesn't get elected.

[The Blaatschapen]

I'd probably set a big chunk aside in a good investment fund. Then use the revenue that makes for living. The rest I'll spend on travelling the world.

And even after travelling the world. Shit, this is a lot of money. Uhhh.... travel the world again and again?

[AiliailiA]

I don't know what I'd do. It's so incredibly unlikely I've never bothered to think about what I'd do.

Do people daydream about that? Does thinking about it but then never getting to do it, actually make them happier?

I wonder, because I'm open to the possibility that the money people spend on lotteries they don't win, actually does make them happier. If losing their money makes them happier than (say) buying some luxury like a different colored jacket for their phone, or a beer, then I really must approve the lottery industry for supplying consumer satisfaction with minimal ecological impact and a certain purity of intent and outcome.

If however entering a lottery and then not winning makes people less happy, it would be indefensible as an industry. The happiness of winners is obviously limited (marginal utility) and cannot possibly outweigh the unhappiness AND impoverishment of the many losers.

Personally I don't gamble much. I'll enter a small sweepstake, but more to be sociable than the excitement of possibly winning. I make bets with friends, for money, but I think my motivation is very different from a gambler's. I want to be proven right and I fear being proven wrong. The exchange of money (or some favor) at the conclusion of a bet is about as close as my friends ever come to saying "you were right and I was wrong" without being pissy about it, and it's actually easier for me to make that admission by settling the bet when I'm wrong. A polite fiction perhaps, but I can pretend my friend is just happy to get the money not happy that I was wrong.

[Dahon]

I'd probably set a big chunk aside in a good investment fund. Then use the revenue that makes for living. The rest I'll spend on travelling the world.

And even after travelling the world. Shit, this is a lot of money. Uhhh.... travel the world again and again?

You can travel to ISIS-occupied Iraq and buy all sorts of antiquities before they get sold elsewhere -- and you of the good heart will then dump them to a European museum just so they could show to the world the splendors of the Middle East before the madness that has been the last quarter-century.

And then future generations of hopefully secularised Muslims will forever be grateful to you for helping preserve what you can of their heritage.

[Hillary Clinton 2016-2024]

If you buy enough tickets and pick different combinations every time your garuntee to win

[The Florence Union]

What would you do if you won? How would you spend it?

Cocaine and hookers.

I laughed my butt off when the guy said that on live television

[Dazchan]

If you buy enough tickets and pick different combinations every time your garuntee to win

You would need about 175 million tickets to guarantee a jackpot win.

[AiliailiA]

If you buy enough tickets and pick different combinations every time your garuntee to win

Yes yes Hillary. But you only get to enter once every four years, and your chances of living to 100 are pretty damn slim.

[AiliailiA]

If you buy enough tickets and pick different combinations every time your garuntee to win

You would need about 175 million tickets to guarantee a jackpot win.

292 million actually, to cover every combination. Even then, someone else might pick the same six numbers and you'd have to share.

[Hillary Clinton 2016-2024]

If you buy enough tickets and pick different combinations every time your garuntee to win

You would need about 175 million tickets to guarantee a jackpot win.

Then buy get a loan of $350 million,win the jackpot,pay of the debt with it.and use the leftover money on something

[Dazchan]

You would need about 175 million tickets to guarantee a jackpot win.

292 million actually, to cover every combination. Even then, someone else might pick the same six numbers and you'd have to share.

Ah, the article I was basing my numbers on was out of date. My apologies.

Incidentally, in Australia we play with less balls but have to get 6+1 for the jackpot. You'd only have to buy 77 million tickets.

[The Alma Mater]

Buy a nice Island with amenities to surivive the coming zombie apocalypse.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

I'd buy and refurbish the USS Kitty Hawk and use it as my personal floating command post and sail the oceans and seas for a while.

[AiliailiA]

292 million actually, to cover every combination. Even then, someone else might pick the same six numbers and you'd have to share.

Ah, the article I was basing my numbers on was out of date. My apologies.

Incidentally, in Australia we play with less balls but have to get 6+1 for the jackpot. You'd only have to buy 77 million tickets.

Australians, less balls, I don't understand

According to Wikipedia, the biggest Powerball jackpot in Australia was $80 million (in 2009). Buying 77 million tickets does not sound like a payoff strategy.

You would need about 175 million tickets to guarantee a jackpot win.

Then buy get a loan of $350 million,win the jackpot,pay of the debt with it.and use the leftover money on something

You do it. Send me a few dollars for encouraging you.

Seriously, I can't see why not. Perhaps it's that anyone who already has that much money can grow it anyway (without the infamy of gaming a lottery), that anyone with that much to lend out also doesn't want that reputation ... or perhaps there's fine print in the lottery contract to prevent it.

[Sane Outcasts]

Ah, the article I was basing my numbers on was out of date. My apologies.

Incidentally, in Australia we play with less balls but have to get 6+1 for the jackpot. You'd only have to buy 77 million tickets.

Australians, less balls, I don't understand

According to Wikipedia, the biggest Powerball jackpot in Australia was $80 million (in 2009). Buying 77 million tickets does not sound like a payoff strategy.

Then buy get a loan of $350 million,win the jackpot,pay of the debt with it.and use the leftover money on something

You do it. Send me a few dollars for encouraging you.

Seriously, I can't see why not. Perhaps it's that anyone who already has that much money can grow it anyway (without the infamy of gaming a lottery), that anyone with that much to lend out also doesn't want that reputation ... or perhaps there's fine print in the lottery contract to prevent it.

The tickets are $2, and with odds of 1 in 292 million you'd need to spend $584 million to get every combination. Even on this record jackpot, taxes would reduce your winnings to maybe tens of millions in a state that doesn't tax it, or to less than the cost of the tickets in states that do tax it. For half a billion dollars, there's a lot more profit to be made from other investments.

[Gun Manufacturers]

With no winners for Saturday's drawing, the Powerball reaches an estimated $1.3 billion for next Wednesdays drawing, a number larger than the GDP of Guinea-Bissau. With a cash value of $806 million, an all time record jackpot. To win the jackpot, all six numbers must be correct. The first five can be in any order, but the sixth must be the red Powerball number.

What would you do if you won? How would you spend it? Personally I quite frankly don't know what I would do with that much money. I assume that a jackpot that high could only be a curse and drive me into a lonely and secluded life.

Source: Powerball

I guess I have to go into work tomorrow.

My immediate family members would benefit from me winning, and my friends that stuck by me even when I was broke would as well. Beyond that, I'd do some traveling, first around the world to all the places I've dreamed about going, then across the US so I can figure out where I'm going to live. Wherever I do end up, it's going to be on a large parcel of land (at least 100 acres of mixed farmland and woods).