When you buy one ticket your chances are 1:170,000,000. But when you be a second your odds instantly double. Based on this math i've purchased 30 tickets.

1$ = 1:170,000,000
2$ = 1:85,000,000
3$ = 1:42,500,000
4$ = 1:21,750,000
...
30$ = 1:0.317

I expect to win 3 jackpots, and all the minor prizes. I don't know why no one has figured this out yet.

GAT_00: I bought 5. Might get some more tomorrow. I'm not dumb enough to expect to win, it's just fun to imagine what I could do with all of it, and you can't win if you don't play.

Besides, I've wasted $5 in far dumber ways before.

Yes. You waste 5 a month ruining fark political threads.

I seem to recall one of these threads from a few years back, and there were the usual "hookers and blow" suggestions, but then there were a few that stuck with me. The one that I always remember though, and have sworn to do should I ever win big, is to buy myself an Extra Large Cooper.

I'm going to bet it all on Sebulba!

AeAe: tweek46420: namatad: so I am thinking about buying $100 worth. I can easily afford the 100.
but
I am so embarrassed that I will have to go down at like 4am to buy them so no one else sees me buying the tickets.

/sad but true

you can't buy them that late....they shut the machines down after 12.....at least in MN they do

buy your tickets really early then. And wear a hoodie.

Might as well get it during one of my early morning iced tea and skittle runs. I know a shortcut through my neighborhood, so it's not that bad of a walk.

The cash annuity option is 359 million. After federal and state taxes, that's down to 179 million.

not even worth it.

craxyd: sforce: That's too much for any one person so I'm here to give you all the winning numbers:

22-23-31-44-53 MB 17

I'm going to need 5% from everyone, I live in a non Megamillions state.


You lied!

They're the winning numbers to something, I didn't specify this necessarily. Keep trying, they'll work out somewhere.

iToad: Hmm... 176 million to 1 odds. Put 27 pennies in a jar. Thoroughly shake the jar. Pour the pennies out on a table.

The odds of all 27 of them showing heads is about 134 million to one.

Ha ha..but I'm betting on tails!

I'd buy a Scrooge McDuck costume and swim in the shiat!

Just kidding. I'd leave my job so fast, my office chair would still be spinning for a couple of weeks.

I threw $2 into the office pool.

On the less-likely-than-being-struck-by-lightning chance I win, I would do the following:

1. Buy a house in South Pasadena.
2. Buy a new, mid-priced car with plenty of cargo space.
3. Invest everything else and spend the rest of my life pretending to be middle class.
4. Except for a big donation to my university, so I can get a building named after me.

I'm gonna wait till it's 7 trillion.
Then I can pay it all to Obama if I win. And help our economy.

Ted Turner Buys All Possible Mega Millions Combinations Just to Be a Dick (new window)

Arcturus72: Meh... I'd thought about not playing this thing for one simple reason:

Most lotteries REQUIRE you to give your full name in order to receive the jackpot. This lets the lotto people "prove that real people are playing and winning"...

And if you don't think EVERY stinking idiot you ever wronged in your life won't be looking you up, trying to sue you for "their cut" of the money, I'll have a bridge to sell you...

Lets see them try seizing my assests after battling the Rancor.

Id give my wife 55% and say bye!

Instead of spending $10 on lunch today, I will buy 2 chicken sandwiches at McDonald's for $2. Then spend the other $8 on Lotto tickets. I cut my calories and get a chance at winning big bux. A win, win.

bulldg4life: So, I'll take the $247,710,000 that I would get in Georgia...

Give me the $47m+ to blow on anything I can think of...I'll invest $200m in a nice medium risk fund getting 8% and I'll have a solid $1.6b when I'm 50.


It would be great to see someone's name on the Forbes list that under "source of wealth" just says "lucky bastard".

All I want to know is, how the hell would you even be able to LOOK at the winning ticket if you had it?

I sure as hell would be so damned terrified that it would spontaneously combust, or the ink would fall off, or my dog would eat it...

neongoats: 3)purchase modest local home, trick it out, update it, make it mine(like sub 200k home).

Purchase old nuclear missile silo. Outfit it with real nuclear missile. Demand $100 million dollars!!!!

The Onion is prophetic: The odds of winning are 176,000,000 to one. Therefore, I just need to buy 176,000,000 tickets, and I'm guaranteed to triple my money!

/farkin' probability, how does it work?

This is probably why it jumped from 467M to 500M in the early morning. someone...or 2 someones may be doing this already.

MyRandomName: GAT_00: I bought 5. Might get some more tomorrow. I'm not dumb enough to expect to win, it's just fun to imagine what I could do with all of it, and you can't win if you don't play.

Besides, I've wasted $5 in far dumber ways before.

Yes. You waste 5 a month ruining fark political threads.

LOL

If I win, there'll be a 2012 Camaro ZL1 up on blocks in front of the double-wide just for fun.

I bought two dollars worth this morning before the rush hit. As others have said, you can't win if you don't play.

I figure if I win, I'll get enough national attention that Kat Dennings will notice me and want to have nasty, sweaty, grindy sex with me.

/brb

Honest Bender: CBob: A little hard work and you could turn that into some real money there.

Why bother? Stick the ~$400 million in an account earning 4-5% interest. Sit on your lazy butt and collect $16-20 million in risk free profit every year.

Where are accounts with these rates being offered? Assuming that the past doesn't qualify as a location.

jag164: August11: Ok. Just to remind everyone. There is only one way to proceed if you win.

1. Create a 501c3 charitable foundation with the money.
2. Make yourself CEO of foundation with a yearly salary of $180,000.
3. Spend the rest of your life wisely giving worthy causes money.
4. If you cannot seem to live a good life on that salary, then you should die.
5. Live a good life.

Where is the step that includes hookers and blow?

#4

I'm a math guy, so I know the odds of winning are somewhere up around being simultaneously killed in a plane crash while being eaten by a shark AND annihilated in a meteor explosion, but I threw 5 bucks at it anyway, because it's nice to dream.

August11: Ok. Just to remind everyone. There is only one way to proceed if you win.

1. Create a 501c3 charitable foundation with the money.
2. Make yourself CEO of foundation with a yearly salary of $180,000.
3. Spend the rest of your life wisely giving worthy causes money.
4. If you cannot seem to live a good life on that salary, then you should die.
5. Live a good life.

Where is the step that includes hookers and blow?

gameshowhost:
Sure, but it gets to be a problem when "daydream" turns into "investment strategy"... '

Seems like whenever all I need is a pack of smokes, I get stuck behind someone doing their retirement planning.

A little hard work and you could turn that into some real money there.

/oblig

I bought 5. Might get some more tomorrow. I'm not dumb enough to expect to win, it's just fun to imagine what I could do with all of it, and you can't win if you don't play.

Besides, I've wasted $5 in far dumber ways before.

now that's walking around money