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Lottery

P

PC166

Banned
The ideas behind this is to take a little from everyone, even 1 buck is more then sufficient. Pile it up together and what do you have? multiplied by the number of people to give to one lucky person to happen to draw the right number. Is gambling isn't it? LOL but even a monkey can figure this out.
 
The funny thing about the lottery is, say one million people give 1 dollar each. There is 1 million dollars collected. That means the jackpot is 500,000. (state takes half off the top) Then most people take 1/2 up front option rather than having the winnings spread out over 20 years. So now your looking at 250,000. Then you get to pay state and federal taxes which both add up to about 50%. Now you walk away with 125,000. Then when you spend that 125,000 on a home or something you get the honor of paying tax on whatever you bought! The lottery should be illegal. It's a tax for people who are bad at math.


I always tell people who play regulary that they should save up and go to vegas if they have to gamble. The odds of winning there are much,much better.
 


<< The funny thing about the lottery is, say one million people give 1 dollar each. There is 1 million dollars collected. That means the jackpot is 500,000. (state takes half off the top) Then most people take 1/2 up front option rather than having the winnings spread out over 20 years. So now your looking at 250,000. Then you get to pay state and federal taxes which both add up to about 50%. Now you walk away with 125,000. Then when you spend that 125,000 on a home or something you get the honor of paying tax on whatever you bought! The lottery should be illegal. It's a tax for people who are bad at math.


I always tell people who play regulary that they should save up and go to vegas if they have to gamble. The odds of winning there are much,much better. >>

Yeah but they are paying tax on a house they paid $1 for and not trying to save up for a $125,000 house to pay taxes on.
 


<< The ideas behind this is to take a little from everyone, even 1 buck is more then sufficient. Pile it up together and what do you have? multiplied by the number of people to give to one lucky person to happen to draw the right number. Is gambling isn't it? LOL but even a monkey can figure this out. >>


Well, thanks for clearing that up for us, Sparky!
 


<< Yeah but they are paying tax on a house they paid $1 for and not trying to save up for a $125,000 house to pay taxes on. >>



actually, they will end up buying tickets all the time, and usually for their whole life.. soo they end up spending quite a bit more on the tickets than $1.... i would guess more along the lines of.. conservatively $100 per year... multiply that by the number of years they will play.. lets say 50 for a round number (18-68 years old). so they could have had $5,000 on hand if they put it all away under their mattress... now counting all the compound interest that would have built up if put away in the bank.... they coulda had a HUGE chunk of cash. if they had a savings account with a 5% apr, adding the $100 per year, then they would have $1320.68 after 10 years, $3471.93 after 20, and over $30,000.00 by 50 years... i would much rather have that than a slight chance at $125,000
 


<< ....... they coulda had a HUGE chunk of cash. if they had a savings account with a 5% apr, adding the $100 per year, then they would have $1320.68 after 10 years... >>

even worse if they have a company 401(k) it would have grown tax free until retirement and possibly with company matching funds. Or Roth IRA also tax free (after normal payroll taxes). And in a S&P 500 index fund the growth would historically be 9-10% (average over 10+ years) instead of 5%.

Still, I do buy a $1 lottery ticket now and then when the jackpot is over $10m, just for the fantasy 🙂 but I spend maybe $5/year ($0 so far in '02) and put much much more than $5 into my brokerage account.
 
I spent a dollar when the big game got that huge jackpot a few weeks ago. Am I stupid for doing it? Nope. For that 3 hours I felt like I was about to never care about cash again 😀 Well worth the $1 I put into it.
 


<< I spent a dollar when the big game got that huge jackpot a few weeks ago. Am I stupid for doing it? Nope. For that 3 hours I felt like I was about to never care about cash again 😀 Well worth the $1 I put into it. >>


How much did you earn?
 
the big lottery in western Canada is mathematicaly impossible to win (almost) yet people win somehow.....
the way it works is that you pick 6 numbers out of 49, no number can be picked twice. to get the odds we do this:
(49!) - (43!) which is really:
44 x 45 x 46 x 47 x 48 x 49
= 1 x 10^10
WOW, my chance of winning is 1 in 10 billion, don't i feel friggin lucky!

let's say they collect 10 million dollars, 5 million is the prize income tax is 50% so 2.5 million, spread out of 25 years we still technically get the 2.5 million BUT that excludes inflation. to find the amount of money the last year is worth we do this:
2,500,000 / 25 = $100,000 per year which sounds great right? NO WAIT! inflation let's just assume is 3% since i don't really know, the last year of money would be:
100,000 x 0.97^25 = $47,000 about in terms of real value.

lotteries are basically a big scam if they don't pay you in lump sum. lotteries are great in terms of fund raising though, my local hockey team has a lottery so that the team stays in this city instead of goin to the states. they have a lot of history in this city and we would hate to see them leave 🙂

history records show that many wars were payed for through lotteries, Napoleon payed for lots of his little projects by holding lotteries.
 


<<

<< I spent a dollar when the big game got that huge jackpot a few weeks ago. Am I stupid for doing it? Nope. For that 3 hours I felt like I was about to never care about cash again 😀 Well worth the $1 I put into it. >>


How much did you earn? >>

He won $0 of course, but got three hours of entertainment for $1, which is cheaper than a movie. What's sad are the people who spend the $100+/year instead of investing, but $10-20/year is nothing to feel bad about.
 


<<

<<

<< I spent a dollar when the big game got that huge jackpot a few weeks ago. Am I stupid for doing it? Nope. For that 3 hours I felt like I was about to never care about cash again 😀 Well worth the $1 I put into it. >>


How much did you earn? >>

He won $0 of course, but got three hours of entertainment for $1, which is cheaper than a movie. What's sad are the people who spend the $100+/year instead of investing, but $10-20/year is nothing to feel bad about. >>

exactly
 


<< the way it works is that you pick 6 numbers out of 49, no number can be picked twice. to get the odds we do this:
(49!) - (43!) which is really:
44 x 45 x 46 x 47 x 48 x 49
= 1 x 10^10
WOW, my chance of winning is 1 in 10 billion, don't i feel friggin lucky! >>



Ummmm, actually its more like 1 in 13.9 million. <edit> Exact odds: 1 in 13,983,816 </edit>
 
no man, put it in your calculator.
49 x 48 x 47 x 46 x 45 x 44 = 1.006834.......x10^10
that turns into 1 with 10 zeros
10,000,000,000

1 in 10 billion chance of winning.
 


<< Ummmm, actually its more like 1 in 13.9 million. <edit> Exact odds: 1 in 13,983,816 </edit> >>



even without using a calculator, it's roughly (5*10)^6 or 5^3 * 5^3 * 10^6 or (approximating again) 10^2 *10^2 *10^6 = 10^10. So 1.3 * 10^7 can't be right.
 


<< i don't understand how you are getting those numbers, where are those 5's 3's and 6's coming from? >>

49...44 are all roughly 5*10 so 6 lotto numbers ( ^ = exponent ) is roughly = 5^6 * 10^6. Certainly close enough to decide between millions and billions.
 


<< The odds are 1 in (49!/(6! x 43!)) = 1 in 13,983,816 , as Format C: said >>



no way dude, it would be 1 in (49!) - (43!) which ends out in being 44 x 45 x 46 x 47 x 48 x 49
think of it in terms of common sense:
first number is 1 in 49, so we take 49
second number is 1 in 48 (number can't be picked twice) so we take 48
third is 1 in 47
fourth is 1 in 46
fifth is 1 in 45
sixth is 1 in 44

multiply 44 x 45 x 46 x 47 x 48 x 49 to get our big ol odds of impossibility 😉
 


<< The lottery is a poor man's tax. >>


That's my only problem with it. Too many people who are barely getting by play with the hope of hitting it big. I play pretty often. Anytime the jackpot hits double digits I'm in, but I take it out of my lunch money. It won't hurt me to miss a meal everynow and then, but the same can't be said for those who may have other mouths to feed.
 
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