The Powerball jackpot has soared to an estimated $1.04 billion after no tickets matched all six numbers in Saturday night’s drawing.
Saturday night’s drawing produced white balls 19, 30, 37, 44 and 46 and red Powerball 22.
The $1.04 billion prize – an estimated $478.2 million in cash value – is the second-largest jackpot this year, topped only by a $1.08 billion prize won on July 19 by a ticketholder in California.
If I win I’ll give everyone in this thread a million dollars.
So, if there’s 60 people in the thread, everyone gets $16,667
I see you all fell for my cunning ruse. Definitely not something I figured out after I posted. Not at all.
You’re more likely to get struck by lightning while taking a poop, so for your sake I hope you win instead.
You are of course joking. But on the infinitly tiny odds you win, and the similarly ridiculous odds you follow through, I’ll comment
With odds like that, we can’t fail. Simple rule of conservation of narration.
I hope you win, keep your word, and the news runs a story on it afterwards thats grows the user base and specifically siphons users from Reddit. I want to see Reddit burn to the ground.
That would actually be such an interesting way to gain users, I want to see that
I and my 43 children all are pleased to be in the thread.
But that just means the million will be divided up even more, reducing your share! ;)
Your comment implies it’s a million to each commenter
I’m just messing around, we all know I won’t win lol.
Too late, I’ve already bought a JetSki with your expected winnings
implies
So these people get money because of the implication?
Can I get $420.69?
I mean 16k~ is still a decent amount of money
Thanks, pal!
I hereby declare myself a member of this fine thread
Goooood luck!
Neat.
I need money thx.
Hey, free odds approaching zero is better than paid options approaching zero
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Hey, a thousand buys a lot of lottery tickets…
=)
I’ll take the possible free money lol
Thank you
When someone gives you odds like that, you take it!
Sure.
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How much if you don’t win?
About tree fiddy
Sweet!
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I would like to win.
Goddammit… Alright, everyone. Pack it up. He already called it.
Thank you.
I would like you to win.
I appreciate it.
So are PowerBall and Mega Millions now rigged to make sure that the jackpot always hits $1B before a winner is drawn?
Rigged in the sense that they intentionally made the odds so long as to almost ensure it would routinely go weeks and weeks without a winner. So yes, it is by design.
They changed this some years ago. Odds used to be better, they made them worse on purpose to get bigger jackpots.
Which makes it less worthwhile to play, IMHO. Odds were horrible before the change and now they’re WORSE? No thanks.
ETA: I have not done it in a while, but I might buy a ticket for fun. It is worth a few dollars just to dream a little.
This is what they are banking on.
I bought a Powerball ticket the first time it hit a billion. I found out why later that day. I knew it was a waste to begin with, but it kinda pissed me off. 2006ish(?), turns out making the odds even worse drives up jackpot.
So is it optimal strategy to never play on a new (non rolled over) session? Seems like a bit of a prisoners’ dilemma if everyone realises that
Billion dollar question, my friend.
I imagine their sales go up fast when so-called “news” outlets (like this community) report that it’s hit that level.
Never mind that it makes your already infinitesimal odds of winning even smaller, when the regular jackpot would already be a life-changing amount of money. People who only buy tickets when the jackpot goes up are just falling even harder for the scam than those who buy when the jackpot is “low”.
The odds of winning don’t change based on the number of people who buy tickets.
But the odds of sharing a prize do.
Yes. Though, that is an artifact of the rules of the payout; everyone’s chances of winning are exactly the same.
The odds of winning are always the same, so why are the ones buying tickets less often falling for the scam harder? It’s dumb too, but conceptually speaking it’s a better return on investment if you win somehow.
The expected value of a ticket goes up. At some point it’s higher than the cost of the ticket.
I was told years ago when I worked at a convince store our loto rep said white balls coming out of the machine are fake it never random. They decide when it pays out. He claims it only pays out when they earn double what will be paid out. This back when loto got up to like 4 million. So they would earn 8 and then give the illusion that the white balls came out and gave a winner.
He says they preload the winning numbers. Since it all electronic they can keep people from winning for as long as they want because they know all numbers submitted.
Well if he works as a lotto rep in the field, we know he’s in the loop on a plan that would land dozens of people in jail above him.
and all that risk and complexity for no obvious benefit?
I’m not American, please explain, why is the cash value only 478.2 million? Is that after taxes or something?
It’s not after taxes.
The “jackpot” is what you get if you select an annual annuity over 30 years.
The cash value is what you get if you want it all today.
Taxes come after.
This site explains it well: https://www.usamega.com/powerball/jackpot
TL/DR it’s not even 300 million by the time they fuck you in the arse 😂
That’s just false advertising
I mean, I’m okay with only getting $250 million.
Right. Hell, I’d gladly accept and amount.
Yes. They withhold taxes, and at that point it’s all in the highest bracket, and you haven’t had the cash to get a bunch of credits and deductions.
Some lotteries offer an annuity style payout, over 20 years. This can reduce the tax implications over the whole life, but inflation and not having the money invested can eat it up.
It’s a trade off that would be great to have to worry about.
The taxes are not included in that figure. That’s the actual prize pool money they’d have on hand in case of a win. The advertised jackpot is an estimate of an annuity paid off investing that prize pool in securities over the course of 30 years
The lottery will withhold 24% for federal income tax – but you’d likely owe more as the vast majority of that income will wind up taxed at 37%. Then there’s also state income taxes in most places.
If I win this jackpot and take the lump sum it would break down something like:
$478,200,000
-$33,474,000 (7% state tax)
-$176,898,427 (37% federal tax)
= $267,827,573 (total after tax)
2 things: taxes are taken from the winnings, and the jackpot quoted is the amount you would get if you picked the regular payments rather than lump sum.
The regular payments include trust fund interest/growth I think, so you get more.
It’s confusing as all hell. I’d much prefer it tax free and lump sum. Tell me exactly what I get, don’t dress it up to make it look better than it is!
The tax-free annuity payment version is by far the better deal. But some people elect to get the lump sum in cash, and you end up getting far less than half of it, esp after taxes.
The annuity isn’t tax free. You pay taxes on that income every year just like (and in addition to) any other income you have.
Also, you could most likely beat the rate of return on those investments if you know what you’re doing. But on the other hand most lottery winners won’t know what they’re doing. Additionally the annuity can be a stopgap to keep you from losing everything all at once.
Even if you know what you’re doing, you’ll probably go bankrupt after winning. Annuity is, as you said, a stopgap against stupidity.
The taxes a far far less, though, and the total sum is far greater.
As for the rest, that’s all speculation. None of that is guaranteed. That annuity is guaranteed.
The taxes are far less on a yearly basis, but over the course of the annuity you’ll actually pay a lot more in taxes. Rough calculation, if I won this jackpot it would break down to:
-
Lump sum: Immediate payment of $478.2M with a tax bill of around $210M for my state and Federal income taxes. Net payout of $267.8M.
-
Annuity: $1.04B paid over 30 years. At current tax rates that’s a bill of $456.5M over that 30 years. Net payout of around $583.5M. If tax rates change during the term of the annuity those could rise or fall a bit.
Not like I’ll ever have to worry about the problem,but I think I would take the annuity because I’ve never had to manage a large amount of money, and it more gently eases you into it while giving some buffer to assure you don’t somehow blow through everything quickly.
-
This has never been true. If u take the annuity they take the lump and invest that and instead of getting the full profits of that investment you get the same flat rate every year.
You can’t guarantee profits from an investment. That’s just a gamble. However, you can guarantee the gigantic amount of taxes they will deduct from it, and you’re only getting half as much from the cash payout anyway.
If you get the lump sum though that’s a large amount growing when invested. You can easily take that and grow it into more than you’d get over time from the payments.
That’s not a guaranteed payout. The annuity payments, however, is. Plus, with a lump sum, Pam, you get hammered huge amounts of taxes.
If it takes you longer than 30 years to turn $200m into $1.08b then my friend you have a poor financial advisor. Also by then the $1.08b won’t be worth the same, considering inflation.
Possibly, but that’s still all speculation
Stupid tax.
Yep. That’s $1.04b taken from the pockets mostly people who should be trying to put it to savings, not giving away money on a pipedream. Giving it to a winner who statistically will likely have their life ruined by such a windfall.
It’s goddam stupid. The “causes” the lottery pays back to, like education, should be funded by taxing those who don’t need the extra money, not by duping people who desperately need every dollar they earn.
Oddly enough not entirely. Yes it is a total waste of money to buy a ticket, but I remembered hearing a piece a while back that broke down why the poor bought the majority of tickets. Basically it broke down to the fact that they knew there was no chance of them ever getting out of poverty without some major windfall event. They know that there is no real chance of winning, but sadly it was the closest thing to hope they had. They aren’t stupid just desperate.
Hurry up chucklefucks, get out there and pay your stupid tax! Bonus points for holding up the line, during the afternoon rush, at an already busy gas station.
The IRS wins $400 million!!!
I am not a violent man.
But that shit brings me very close.
I wanna see a Bruce Almighty scenario with the lotto at some point in my life.
You get three darts to throw at the balloons and if you hit all three you get a prize. No, not the giant bear. Never the giant bear.
I know they give you the odds of winning with one ticket but what are the odds of winning with 10 tickets? It is not as simple as multiplying by 10, is it?
Long ago I was part of a lottery pool and we never really won anything. Just wondering if this has better odds than going on your own.
Yes, it’s as easy as multiplying by 10 for this kind of lottery. Let’s say you have to pick three numbers correctly. There’s 1000 possibilities (000 - 999). A random 3 digit string has a 1/1000 chance of winning. That’s close enough for most purposes. If you want to get really pedantic about it, you can say that with one ticket picked from a pool of 1000 (eg 123) you have a .999 chance of losing. Your second ticket is now picking from a pool of 999 possibilities, so the chance of picking the winner slightly increases to 1/999. The difference between doing the math that way and just multiplying the chance of a winning ticket by the number of tickets you buy is very small, though. There’s other lottery styles (eg, where the winning number is picked from a group of sold tickets, so a winner is guaranteed), where the math changes.
What you really want to do is figure out the expected value of a ticket. If there’s 1000 possible numbers and a $1000 prize, the tickets are worth &1. If they’re selling for $2 each, it’s not worth it. If they’re selling for $0.50 each, it’s worth buying them all. There was an investment group of friends that used to do this by searching the internet for lotteries. You just have to realize that it’s the kind of gamble that will pay off over time and not martingale yourself.
It’s 1:292.2 million, so 10 tickets is 1:29.22 million. There are theories about buying all 292.2 million numbers, but the issue always comes back to not being alone in the pool; you will win, but if someone else wins (or did the same thing), you will lose a few million for all your hard work.
Edit: also the tickets are now $2, so buying all numbers is still more expensive than the prize after taxes.
I could sure use the money…
I mean, sure, why not?
😆 The last lottery ticket I bought was 38 years ago. I regreted throwing away a dollar it’s too traumatic.
Why do they even bother announcing so much money when we all know taxes are like 40%… what even is the point of announcing such a high figure? Like the government is just paying themselves at this point so why bother taxing it. To provide further dilution you have to accept an annuity to even approach getting all the money.
Man idk, Uncle Sam could have a field day with that money, wipe their ass with what’s left, and hand it to me and it would still be a ridiculously life-changing amount
Ok count me in (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
