Colbert did a lottery bit yesterday that killed
http://www.colbertnation.com/full-ep...-peter-beinart

the lump sum discount used to be a lot larger so you got a lower percentage. market rates have changed so its a higher percentage of the total now than its ever been.

That's interesting. Do you know the difference (% wise) between the lump sum, and taking payments over 40 years?

well, if you can get them to pay you over 40 years instead of the 26 payments they actually offer then that would be enticing since you get 14 extra payments. cash option is 71.8% ($359 million with the $500 million advertised payout which has now been raised to $640). That is $275 million at the new payout level with a 40% effective tax rate which seems like a decent estimate for what youre rate would be.

On an additional note, it is probably the only time you will have the opportunity to go to vegas and play on an even footing with the casino. lottery winnings are considered gambling winnings so you could deuct losses from winnings for tax purposes so youre only risking $.60 for every dollar.

if i won 640 mil i'd buy a minor league baseball team and force them to play their games in barney costumes for my amusement

i think i read somewhere if one person won the jackpot and took a lump sum it would be 359 mil

Today is an amazing people watching day. It's like utter desperation for every person that walks into QuikChek and has 5 dollars in their hand.

gave a homeless person outside a liquor store next to the gym a $1 ticket. wrote down the numbers to sweat it

what are the numbers? we need to sweat this too (and send the police to your house if they hit bc you might suicide). I gave a homeless guy a dollar when I bought my ticket for karma.

My favorite so far is the people at the grocery store using food stamps then dropping 100 on the lotto

lol

2 27 31 32 48 mega: 22

i'm probably just gonna waste half an hour driving around town and taking pics of the lines

Lol winning would kill that homeless man

The lines are the most incredible part of the jackpot

I have never seen a line for the lotto, I don't understand it. Every time I've bought tickets, you just step right up, hand over your dollar and move on, regardless of whether it's in the city, suburbs, whatever

at the liquor store (at ****ing 8 am, mind u) there were at least 10 people in front of me to buy tix. some were buying booze, some were cashing checks, some were cashing checks to buy lotto tickets

i dunno, when you make ~300 or so from 2 weeks of working at mcdonalds and elect to spend 1/3 of that on lotto tickets, it's a safe bet your life is hopeless

state by state mega millions payouts

http://www.usamega.com/mega-millions-jackpot.asp

Haha...today is a great day.

Wow, screw NJ.

what's going to tilt me to ****ing hell is it's gonna be an 80 year old hermit in some ****hole city in the middle of ****ing nowhere with no kids who ends up winning. he'll probably leave the whole thing untouched in his will to the westboro baptist church, scientology, or some other stupid cult ****. i ****ing hate old people

I was in line yesterday at a gas station at like 715 pm and there were 6 people in front of me and all had tickets and two or three were getting a coke or beer or something in addition to the ticket. at least half looked like they had never bought a ticket before in their life including myself.

I am really strongly rooting for no one to win this one or the next few and then mass hysteria and claims of riggage to emerge when it his like $2B and all the poor people are out of money and cant afford even a single ticket bc they burnt it the past few weeks.

no matter who wins, the government wins!

a $1 billion lotto jackpot would be the absolute definition of mass hysteria

Yeah, this would be pretty damn amazing.

in canadia the lotteries don't get this high. is this the equivalent of the 649

this is gonna be me. buy something i dont need so it doesnt look like i came for the lottery