Saw the news and the fact that the lotto is INSANE right now, I think its a US record, $500M.

So, we actually have correct odds to play the lottery.

I bought $20 worth of tickets today. I only play the lotto a few times per year whenever it gets insane (like over $200M).

Anyone else setting some money on fire playing the Lotto???

May buy $100 worth with all the megaballs being 6.

I'm gonna use some money out of my "left over dollar" box for this. Probably gonna go get about 10 tickets later. Pick 5 and 5 quick picks. Maybe more.. The thought of winning almost half a billion dollars is enticing. And I've gambled away Alot more money on worse things.

i'm probably gonna end up buying into the hype

Any chance you can play from outside the US? haha

I think there are some internet lotto sites that you can buy tickets from. Google it.

"That buck that bought the bottle could have struck the lotto " , I am going to lay off the night train today and tomorrow and divert those funds to making a slight +ev play.

Playing even with the jackpot this high is still -EV....

Isn't it an overlay now? Think I read only 270 million possible combos.

176mil combos. +EV now even after cash option and tax.

edit: Actually, maybe not. You have to factor in the probability that nobody else hits it (or the EV if 1 other hits, 2 others, etc...). Whatever, it's close.

Yea, the binomial distribution calculation I think comes out to the expected value of the cash option is only 47% when accounting for multi-winning tickets and then multiply by that by ~60% federal tax (ad additional like 6% for some states tax) and this record setting lottery STILL is +EV. With that being said, I am still going to buy a couple tickets!

In for about $25. Degen.

Found a site and bought some, but guess I'll just have to wait and see now whether or not they're legitimate! haha

Couldn't Mark Cuban guarantee himself like a $200 million dollar profit if he played all the combinations?

No its not.

Once it gets passed $176M you now have correct odds to play

Of course, that's not figuring in taxes. once you figure in taxes, now with it being so high its still +EV

but that is besides the point.

how often in your life will you get the chance to put $1 up against half a billion dollars?

The lotto only gets this insane like once every five to ten years. Surely, you can scrape together some degen money and take a shot.

Hell, just reach in between the cushions of your couch, I'm sure there's a couple of dollars worth of change there.

Hmmmm.... just thinking about all this makes me want to go burn another $20 and get some more tickets

There is a law specifying that corporations are not allowed to play the lotto like that...

There is a limit to how many tickets you can buy at each ticket center which is supposed to discourage that...

I don't know if it is physically possible to buy 176 million tickets by physically purchasing them in groups of 500...

Actually, assuming that you could buy 176M tickets and you had to purchase them in groups of 500, and lets say it took ten minutes for each purchase, then it would take you approximately 59,000 man hours. So, if you paid an army of people to do this, spread out over a few cities, it would cost you roughly $500,000 in labor (assuming roughly $8.5 per person with cost including overhead)

Then of course there is the taxes you'd pay on it, so when everything is said and done, it's still profitable to do this. So I guess it is "possible".

But then, you get screwed when 2 or 3 people hit and you end up splitting...