Long Shot Hot Deal: BIG GAME LOTTERY for MASS, MD, VIRG, GA, MICH, ILL, NJ $325 Mill~HooHa! 4/16

[SFang]

<< Hey maybe someone from AT will win because I reminded them to buy a ticket, and they will give some to me. >>



azdevil, I bought a $3 ticket because of you. You better start pray now. If I didn't win, I probably will ask you for a refund.

 

[RadioactiveMagpies]

This is NOT a hot deal whatsoever.
While it may be entertaining to play and gives some humans hope, it ISN'T A HOT DEAL!
Last thing we need are postings about publishers clearing house, lotto from every state, local bingo, and those win a car form mall walkways sweepstakes.

Donate $1 to charity, the better feeling you get is worth alot more than your chances.

 

[JeffSpicoli]

If you buy 5, 10, 100 or 1000 tickets, the odds are so small that they haven't changed to any significance. However, if you buy 1, at least your odds are better than 0 (just barely, but about the same as if you buy 1000).

 

[Danzilla]

<<

<< Hey maybe someone from AT will win because I reminded them to buy a ticket, and they will give some to me. >>



azdevil, I bought a $3 ticket because of you. You better start pray now. If I didn't win, I probably will ask you for a refund. >>

Sure, but how much are you going to give him if you win?

 

[Tanner]

hehehe, U guys are all PHUNNY! I LOVE the comments about the "stupid tax" hehehehe

 

[junthin]

How bout if someone from the forums wins, he gives us a little "thanks guys" prize money? $10? Then no one can say it's not a hot deal. Go AT'ers!

 

[iamwiz82]

Ya know the funny thing? The people saying th elottery is stupid are the EXACT SAME people who drop $400 on a new video car dto get that extra 5fps.

Different strokes for different folks. I have expendiable income and will be buying $5 worth of tickets. BTW, 1/76 million odds is only for the 300 million. You have a 1 in 30.8 chance of winning anything.

Finally, taking the cash nets you $174 million dollars. Take 40% for taxes is $104.4 million. In cash, in your hands. Tell me that isnt something you would like to feel!

 

[tazmania99]

<< Donate $1 to charity, the better feeling you get is worth alot more than your chances. >>


I just wonder how much "better feeling" will you really get by donating $1 to charity?!?!?!

 

[wuhoo]

think of it this way (also for gambling at casinos) -- its all entertainment value. how much are you willing to spend on entertainment?

 

[Fausto]

I'll buy a few tix...a couple bucks is no skin off my nose and a chunk of the money goes to the HOPE scholarships program here in GA. The lottery has sent a lot of kids to college, so I don't really look at it as a waste of money.

Fausto

 

[x1stunts1x]

Once again, a thread manages to get crapped by mean people! Jeez, if you don't have anything nice to say or anything to add to a thread, why reply? "Dollar for a Dream" is the way you should look at it. What are the odds?..... IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT THE ODDS ARE! lol.

Time to run out and pick up a few tix!

 

[hudster]

MickeyD's dollar menu is a hotter deal than this (although it seems the food is never that hot )

I find a double cheesburger to be much more entertaining than the lottery , although the lottery has less calories.

 

[bigcheez]

since im from ga, and this pays for my school, then this is definatly a hot deal, cause you guys can put me thru school. yay for a dollar for a chance

but for all you skeptics, heres a little something funny


- ATLANTA (AP) -- Consider the morbid math: A dreamer looking to win the $325 million Big Game lottery is 16 times more likely to get killed driving to the gas station to buy a ticket.

so yall be careful!

 

[yoandy]

if i win tonight, tomorrow i'll be in my ferrari on the autobahn!

 

[aphex]

Drivin up to Georgia tomm to get my tix...

 

[knightc2]

Bad odds, but big payout. How about buying all 100 million or whatever it is combinations? You would be gauranteed to win and the jackpot is bigger than the investment. This is assuming no one else shares it with you. A group of people did this a few years back. They bought all possible combinations and won the lottery. It took a ton of people and a ton of investment, but they won. I think they all got like $20,000 for their trouble.

 

[Expandable]

Whoever takes discrete math tell me what are the chances to get six correct order numbers out of 52?

 

[AirMail1]

<< Bad odds, but big payout. How about buying all 100 million or whatever it is combinations? You would be gauranteed to win and the jackpot is bigger than the investment. This is assuming no one else shares it with you. A group of people did this a few years back. They bought all possible combinations and won the lottery. It took a ton of people and a ton of investment, but they won. I think they all got like $20,000 for their trouble. >>



7 yrs ago I wrote some code to do just that for a Virgina lottery that exceeded 100million. There was one other winning ticket. The investors made a nominal return on their investment. I am in the USA but the group of investors were from Australia.

Odds for this one are roughly 72 million to 1. After taxes you are looking at a net of ~180 million.
However the 72 million you spent on tix is all tax deductible.

You just have to hope that there wont be other winning tix and if there are >2 winning tix, (which is VERY possible) you significantly lose money.

 

[jbloggs]

Let me put it simply. Chances of winning the Lottery :

If you buy a ticket - 1 in 76 Million

If you don't buy a ticket - 0, Zero, zilch, nada, none, 0 to the power of infinity (just sounds good), 0 in 0, zero out of zero.

 

[Shagger]

You'd have to be an idiot NOT to play at this point. Sure the odds are higher that you'll get bitten by a shark, hit by a bus, and get stuck by lightning TWICE, all at the same time, but who cares! If all the planets line up for you and you win some big coin are you going to care about your $1 you "wasted"?

BTW if you send in your UPC's off the tickets you can get your rebate from TCA Rebates...

 

[geekender]

Your odds don't change based on how many people play. If you both hit the same winning number, you both win. Both get "only" 162.5million though.....naw....don't waste your dollar.

 

[oshelef]

You loose money playing the lottery when the jack pot is small, however, when the jackpot(paid out today, rather than over 20+ years) is greater than the number of possible combinations(which it seems people are saying is around 77 million) then your average payoff is greater than $1(assuming the pot isn't split, and ingnoring less than full match payouts 5 of 6 etc..).


This means you make money for every ticket you buy.(on average)


This does assume you are risk neutral, which when you talk about large amounts of money probably isn't you. To find out, if I gave you the choice between $10million dollars, and a 50-50 chance of $30 million dollars, which would you choose?



If you are like me, you would take the $10 million in a second, and like me you are Risk Averse. And there in lies the problem of using pure expected payoff for a lottery like this.



Regardless, this lottery is not a tax on anybody(except the people who played the last few times when no one won), and you can take advantage of it. In terms of expected payoff this is free money. The only question is if you would perfer a sure bet in your pocket, or a bet in your favor, but you still take a chance.


Note: Even if you consider the possibility of 2 winners and taxes, (which if you win, go employ a decent tax lawyer(or several), becuase then I'm sure you can figure out a way to pay a lot less in taxes) this lottery seems to have a sufficently large jackpot to appear to be clearly better than fair(in the sense that total payout>total pay in) so go for it.


Note 2: if this sounds interesting think about taking an economics course, or perhaps a decsion analysis course, that covers utility theory.

Orie

 

[thejammy]

you get 38,800 for every million dollars win after taxes. So that means you get about 12.6 million a year for 26 years. Which works out to be about 327.8 million total more thant the jackpot. Nice eh! Remember this is after taxes so take the payments. WOOHOO!

 

[SpideyCU]

The point some people were trying to make was that it's irrelevent to argue whether or not it's worth it to spend a few bucks on the lottery. The point is that this isn't a hot deal. I'll reiterate - should I tell everyone about the "hot deals" going down in Altantic City? Or, as someone else pointed out, let's post about Publisher's Clearing House or any other big-money gamble. I hope this is not an indication of where the forums are heading.

 

[scornful]

a little off topic but $2.50 isnt bad for water....... paid $10 a bottle in Tokyo a couple years back...... same price as the alcohol