Wife and I felt we had no choice but to buy a few tickets with that much of a prize.
Can't win if you don't play right.
-Mike

I wonder if I could buy a Silver Unicorn?

One time I found a photo copy of a group lottery ticket.

I figured that if I also played their numbers, I would win half, and they would have to split the other half among their whole group. Didn't end up winning, but it would have been fun.

Dreams dreams. One thing I'd be doing with some of that money is buying an old downtown warehouse building in a city that I figure out later. Use the freight elevator to haul my collection of muscle cars up to the second floor for storage and display. Then on another floor or section of that building, build the ultimate arcade. All the machines I played from the mid 80's to the 90's.

Our lotto max in Canada was at all time record last night also. But ours can’t get that high as it is actually capped at 60mill
Then each million over 60 is another individual 1 million dollar winner.
So if some one hammers the 60, 54 different people have the chance at 1 mill each. It’s kinda neat.

I've learned that I have almost the exact same chance of winning if I don't buy a ticket.

lol, this is very true.

I agree,but I do remember a couple of years ago,a bunch of people want in on a group buy,and one employee didn't.They won,and I'm sure he was a little disappointed.

We currently have a work group subscription. We have ONE guy in the entire office who opted out. We have a contact signed by all contributors so we are covered. We bascically want to win out of spite now, LOL.

Have read some where that some companies will not allow there employees to group buy lottery tickets. On the chance that if 15 or so employees quit "if' they won a multi million prize.

I've always found this kind of funny .. Like, $1.6 billion, I'll buy a few tickets ... $50 million? No, that's not enough money for me to buy a ticket.

I figure what the hell - live a little! It's fun to dream and a having a shot only costs $2.

I'm willing to accept the risk.

That's why if we get 8 guys to win 100K or 1 mill, (such an unlikely chance anyway) we only get to have some money to spend,none of us will have "fuck you" money. Just no mortgage or a new truck/boat or what have you. Or pinball machines in my case

If you win, set up a trust and have your lawyers pick up the money. Nobody will know it’s you.

Lottery is like alcohol. It amplifies what you really are. If you are unhappy today it isn’t going to help you. If you have crappy friends and family today you are in real trouble.

if i won (which i cant cause i dont buy tickets) id do that pinball tournament DeadFlip envisioned yesterday on the Power 100 Championship stream.

host a tournament in the finals whatever score you end up with you get in cash

so if you scored 75,600 on EL Dorado youd get that in cash

2nd place scored 68,400 theyd get that money as well and so on.

do it on EM's so the payouts arent so high and you could pay out more people!

AFM is out haha

All you need is 1 ticket ($2). Buying one ticket significantly increases your odds from 0 in 302 million to 1 in 302 million. Subsequent numbers do verrrry little to increase your chances (2 - xx in 302 million).

Not all states. Lots of states you can claim it as a trust and go unidentified. Best scenario if you can be patient and gather a team and set the wheels in motion.

I think I'd rather not have all that money to deal with, and all the leeches and headaches that would come with it.

Just started a friends and family pool everybody pitches in the same amount. You win everybody gets the same amount.

I never understand why people daydream about billion dollar payouts but just can’t get excited about a $10 million lotto ticket.

That being said oh Shit I gotta buy a ticket! When I win I’ll buy pinside and ban all my enemies.

Won’t work, not allowed.

It’s pretty interesting to read about things people have tried to avoid their name and face getting out. None of it works in the end though.

I have only been able to postulate one way to do it. All of the money will need to be taken by some real person whose gives up their name. Then via a (hopefully ironclad) prior agreement they then hand it over to you in confidentiality, minus some prenegoitiaged cut. This would work to hide your identity, but the drawback is that taxes would have to be paid twice, as you can’t just gift someone large amounts of money. So it will divide in half again for the privilege of maintaining confidentiality.

No taxes on winnings in Canada, you won’t pay a penny on millions! but there is taxes to gift someone money.

Lottery winnings in Canada are only tax free for 1 year. The following year one would be taxed on any income from those winnings.

The winnings went from one billion to one point six billion -- does that mean 600 million dollars was spent on lottery tickets over a span of a couple days?

That's almost like every person in the country buying one!

I think the people whose lives were ruined were idiots... plain and simple

I could finally build that Rat-rod powered by a EMD 567 and tell that ass hole at the car show that its got more cubes in one cylinder then his whole big block combined!

Statistically, you have a better chance of finding the winning ticket on the ground.

That’s why you should buy two.

$2 a ticket

1.6 billion is not what you wind up with. Realistic figure around 5.5 mil. Still not bad.

if i won i might be able to afford the new Beatles pinball

Divide the 1.6 billion by all your enemies and it's just not enough money.

(naw just kidding, everybody loves your acerbic wit and wisdom.)

I wonder if Bill Gates bought a few tickets.

Hell if I win I might be able to still afford some NIB machines in about 5 years time from now, or at least the deposit anyway.

who else read this topic title in the BSD narrator voice?

Yes it does and yes it is.

I know someone who did it and here is a Forbes article that explains it.

www.forbes.com/sites/robertpagliarini/2016/01/12/how-to-remain-anonymous-if-you-win-the-lottery

It's actually the NPV (Net Present Value) of the (in this case), estimated sales until the selling cut-off for the next draw. But, government lotteries typically pay half of what the odds are and keep the other half for payments to funding stuff, administrative fees, travel boondoggles etc.

Would like to read an article about it from a source other than lawyers selling the service, which is all I can find. Also that Forbes article states that you will have to cede ALL control to another person if you want your name totally out of it. You have to be rock solid on that. Also, taxes are not discussed in any of the articles about doing this.

If it is indeed possible to do this, you would have to be an idiot to NOT do it. There are way too to many whacked-out people in the world, I sure wouldn’t want my name out there in the wild associated with that kind of money.

Well I’d send you my neighbors contact info to discuss, but he put it in a trust for a reason.

The biggest hit from taxes are from estate taxes. Since there is no way you could spend it all, you need to set up your Kids and grandkids as winners so they don’t get hit twice. Again, a trust is the best way to do that.

Also be very careful with the ticket. How you sign it can impact your options on how it is claimed so talk to a lawyer first.

To your point, most winners are idiots.

Who wouldn't be just as happy winning $1 Million dollars? I'd rather they ran it like a Raffle and made 1600 millionaires. They are just using human nature to drive up their own income... an unrealistic jackpot size with unrealistic odds to win.

$10 million is chump change. I don't even start to pay attention to the lottery until it hits at least $300 million.

Depends what makes you happy. $1M is maybe $600k after taxes. Most can't retire on $600k. It would make life more comfortable, and could retire sooner, but not immediately like the big jackpots.

Well I am in and if I win it I will buy every current pinsider from this date a brand new pinball machine!

And you get a pinball, and YOU get a pinball, and YOU get a pinball!

51,845 pinsiders x $6000 (Stern pro + shipping) = $311,070,000.

You'd still have a couple hundred million left over.

With that much, you can buy your way into heaven!

Wait, who wouldn't be happy winning $600k cash?