If I win I'll give everyone in this thread a million dollars.
So, if there's 60 people in the thread, everyone gets $16,667
I see you all fell for my cunning ruse. Definitely not something I figured out after I posted. Not at all.
this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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You're more likely to get struck by lightning while taking a poop, so for your sake I hope you win instead.
You are of course joking. But on the infinitly tiny odds you win, and the similarly ridiculous odds you follow through, I'll comment
With odds like that, we can't fail. Simple rule of conservation of narration.
I hope you win, keep your word, and the news runs a story on it afterwards thats grows the user base and specifically siphons users from Reddit. I want to see Reddit burn to the ground.
That would actually be such an interesting way to gain users, I want to see that
Can I get $420.69?
I mean 16k~ is still a decent amount of money
Thanks, pal!
I hereby declare myself a member of this fine thread
Neat.
Hey, free odds approaching zero is better than paid options approaching zero
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I would like to win.
So are PowerBall and Mega Millions now rigged to make sure that the jackpot always hits $1B before a winner is drawn?
Rigged in the sense that they intentionally made the odds so long as to almost ensure it would routinely go weeks and weeks without a winner. So yes, it is by design.
They changed this some years ago. Odds used to be better, they made them worse on purpose to get bigger jackpots.
Which makes it less worthwhile to play, IMHO. Odds were horrible before the change and now they're WORSE? No thanks.
ETA: I have not done it in a while, but I might buy a ticket for fun. It is worth a few dollars just to dream a little.
This is what they are banking on.
I bought a Powerball ticket the first time it hit a billion. I found out why later that day. I knew it was a waste to begin with, but it kinda pissed me off. 2006ish(?), turns out making the odds even worse drives up jackpot.
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I imagine their sales go up fast when so-called "news" outlets (like this community) report that it's hit that level.
Never mind that it makes your already infinitesimal odds of winning even smaller, when the regular jackpot would already be a life-changing amount of money. People who only buy tickets when the jackpot goes up are just falling even harder for the scam than those who buy when the jackpot is "low".
The odds of winning don't change based on the number of people who buy tickets.
But the odds of sharing a prize do.
Yes. Though, that is an artifact of the rules of the payout; everyone's chances of winning are exactly the same.
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I'm not American, please explain, why is the cash value only 478.2 million? Is that after taxes or something?
It's not after taxes.
The "jackpot" is what you get if you select an annual annuity over 30 years.
The cash value is what you get if you want it all today.
Taxes come after.
This site explains it well: https://www.usamega.com/powerball/jackpot
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Yes. They withhold taxes, and at that point it's all in the highest bracket, and you haven't had the cash to get a bunch of credits and deductions.
Some lotteries offer an annuity style payout, over 20 years. This can reduce the tax implications over the whole life, but inflation and not having the money invested can eat it up.
It's a trade off that would be great to have to worry about.
The taxes are not included in that figure. That's the actual prize pool money they'd have on hand in case of a win. The advertised jackpot is an estimate of an annuity paid off investing that prize pool in securities over the course of 30 years
The lottery will withhold 24% for federal income tax -- but you'd likely owe more as the vast majority of that income will wind up taxed at 37%. Then there's also state income taxes in most places.
If I win this jackpot and take the lump sum it would break down something like:
$478,200,000
-$33,474,000 (7% state tax)
-$176,898,427 (37% federal tax)
= $267,827,573 (total after tax)
2 things: taxes are taken from the winnings, and the jackpot quoted is the amount you would get if you picked the regular payments rather than lump sum.
The regular payments include trust fund interest/growth I think, so you get more.
It's confusing as all hell. I'd much prefer it tax free and lump sum. Tell me exactly what I get, don't dress it up to make it look better than it is!
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(9 replies)
Stupid tax.
Yep. That's $1.04b taken from the pockets mostly people who should be trying to put it to savings, not giving away money on a pipedream. Giving it to a winner who statistically will likely have their life ruined by such a windfall.
It's goddam stupid. The "causes" the lottery pays back to, like education, should be funded by taxing those who don't need the extra money, not by duping people who desperately need every dollar they earn.
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Hurry up chucklefucks, get out there and pay your stupid tax! Bonus points for holding up the line, during the afternoon rush, at an already busy gas station.
The IRS wins $400 million!!!
I am not a violent man.
But that shit brings me very close.
You get three darts to throw at the balloons and if you hit all three you get a prize. No, not the giant bear. Never the giant bear.
I wanna see a Bruce Almighty scenario with the lotto at some point in my life.
I know they give you the odds of winning with one ticket but what are the odds of winning with 10 tickets? It is not as simple as multiplying by 10, is it?
Long ago I was part of a lottery pool and we never really won anything. Just wondering if this has better odds than going on your own.
Yes, it’s as easy as multiplying by 10 for this kind of lottery. Let’s say you have to pick three numbers correctly. There’s 1000 possibilities (000 - 999). A random 3 digit string has a 1/1000 chance of winning. That’s close enough for most purposes. If you want to get really pedantic about it, you can say that with one ticket picked from a pool of 1000 (eg 123) you have a .999 chance of losing. Your second ticket is now picking from a pool of 999 possibilities, so the chance of picking the winner slightly increases to 1/999. The difference between doing the math that way and just multiplying the chance of a winning ticket by the number of tickets you buy is very small, though. There’s other lottery styles (eg, where the winning number is picked from a group of sold tickets, so a winner is guaranteed), where the math changes.
What you really want to do is figure out the expected value of a ticket. If there’s 1000 possible numbers and a $1000 prize, the tickets are worth &1. If they’re selling for $2 each, it’s not worth it. If they’re selling for $0.50 each, it’s worth buying them all. There was an investment group of friends that used to do this by searching the internet for lotteries. You just have to realize that it’s the kind of gamble that will pay off over time and not martingale yourself.
It’s 1:292.2 million, so 10 tickets is 1:29.22 million. There are theories about buying all 292.2 million numbers, but the issue always comes back to not being alone in the pool; you will win, but if someone else wins (or did the same thing), you will lose a few million for all your hard work.
Edit: also the tickets are now $2, so buying all numbers is still more expensive than the prize after taxes.
I could sure use the money...
I mean, sure, why not?
😆 The last lottery ticket I bought was 38 years ago. I regreted throwing away a dollar it's too traumatic.
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