MegaMillions - For real: If I win, what the hell is my first step?

So, the current jackpot is $540mm, from which a one-time cash payout after taxes would be something around $280mm. It is probably going to be a lot higher by the time of the drawing tomorrow evening.

I'm planning on winning.

That is "there are a lot of people who would kill me without thinking" level of money.

What the hell is my first step? Hire a bodyguard? How do I know I can trust HIM?

I'm already going Howard Hughes level of paranoid on this, and I haven't won yet. YET.

Your first mistake was posting this here.

don't tell anyone.

The AP sez...

Good luck, I'm in an office pool w/10 co-workers. Only agreed to chip in if we all agreed on TOTAL ANONYMITY if we win. For me:

Step 1: Write check to bank for balance of mortgage.
Step 2: Drop off checks at my mom and mom-in-law's for same.
Step 3: Disappear forever.

The thing is, only certain states allow for anonymity/a blind trust. Mine isn't one of them. Plan is to wear a disguise and speak with a goofy accent while holding the oversized novelty check.

spend it

if I won the lottery, I would instantly quit my job and start auditioning for grad school vocal programs

I would buy a new, more comfortable mattress. Then I would buy a nice house to go around that mattress. Then I'd take the weekend to consider my next purchases.

the practicalities of winning a lottery always pass me by becuase I think "HOUSE ON THE BEACH! MOVE TO AUSTRALIA! NEVER WORK AGAIN AHAAHAHAHAHA"

See, I would give my two weeks' notice, then spend it coming to work in a bathrobe and drinking PBR.

aw JF I like your plan

okay - here's a habit of the obnoxiously rich - they never wash their socks.

i was going to buy a lottery ticket yesterday but i forgot. i want to find one of those lottery ticket vending machines so i can buy one (just one) without having to deal with a person.

lol I'm not rick at all, but I totally buy a new pack of socks every few weeks.

you are rich in socks

I don't buy new socks until I'm down to odd pairs with holes in them

I hate buying socks

I would have a sock delivery service if I was $$$

I would pay someone to invent the self-cleaning sock.

Value packs of 12 pairs of white crew socks at Walmart are, like $8. It's the one chance I get to simply throw money away and it feels extravagant!

Guys you are never going to need socks again why because

http://www.georgianindex.net/transportationLondon/sedan_chair_men.jpg

lol!

look at us. on the lottery thread already talking about socks.

we should be talking about pet sharks and gold bathtubs

hahah phil

The best advice I've ever read, of all things, was an essay Penn Jillette wrote in one of the P&T books years ago.

He mentioned the blind trust thing as well as moving to a small town where no one knows you. And to tell no one.

The essay isn't online, unfortunately.

buy a small innocuous cottage, and retrofit the inside with fancy furnishings and dig it six storeys down and have like a secret submarine tunnel going out to the bay and make it totally like Wayne Manor

essentially, you just go to your sock store of choice, fill up the cart with bulk socks, and then at the end of each day, throw your dirty socks away. every pair of socks you ever wear will be totally new. that's the high life, baby http://politiclolz.com/files/2009/12/President-Barack-Obama-Dmitry-Medvedev-Russia-Miller-High-Life-Delivery-Guy-160x160.jpg

wow thats a candidate for the SEO hall of fame thread

I would have a separate trash can just for daily socks

I'd probably release vinyl records of music I and my friends recorded every month for the rest of my life.

i'd probably take the annual pay out, invest it, and live off the interest & dividends tbh.

When Trey & Matt were promoting the South Park movie on Dennis Miller's HBO show, they mentioned that they had it written into their contracts that they got several cases of fresh socks.

"hey, if your feet get wet, don't worry about drying those out, just toss em, open a new bag, there ya go. Fresh new pair of socks"

You'll feel at home here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montecito,_California

this shit is fucking wild, i'm never seen a frenzy like this for the lottery

i was in 7-11 buying a drink and people were lined up at the machine like it was a cracked open ATM

btw i'm in for $5 at my office, everyone wish me luck

remember us when you're ballin'

Fuck youtube for no Simpsons lottery clips.

Not even when he throws the book in the fireplace?

That's the one I was looking for!

Also:

Employee: I don't need your crummy job, Mr. Employer! I've won the lottery!
Employer: Well, who needs employees? I won the lottery, too! [two window washers descend on a scaffold, each with a huge bag of cash (money overflowing) at his feet]
Window washers: We both won the lottery!
All: [to camera] Why don't you win the lottery, too!
Announcer: The state lottery, where everybody wins! (actual odds of winning, one in 380,000,000.)

you have a 10x greater chance of dying of flesh-eating disease, so I hope some dude buys a ticket

put in your two weeks get yr shit together book a flight to monaco for the day you go to collect cash get on the jet ball out forever

morbs must you troll him in all the threads?

what did some dude do to morbs

yeah jeez

Not sure about my first step but y'all can come visit me in the Alpes-Maritimes when I win...

is that a place that you will have a giant castle/ski lodge?

then yes

bitching place in New York, bitching place in San Francisco, ranch in Texas to maintain residency/shoot guns, a year at a high-tech athletic facility getting me in the best shape of my life

party with bowls of cocaine and Victoria's Secret models

ha minus the shooting guns part that is exactly my fantasy too. (xp that's not a bad idea either!)

sike

^ ban

I actually did win!!! $3, but still. Chipped away at that jackpot!

i also won $3. which is really $2 if you factor in the cost of the ticket. also, the winnings are taxable, so that leaves me with around a buck.

doesn't it seem like lottery fixation has as much to do with uncertainty and a sense of hopelessness in america right now as it does with the huge jackpot? like lines coming out of supermarkets and corner stores while ppl wait to pray that they're the one in 170 million who is going to win a ticket out of this day to day drudgery and melancholy.

hmmm, it wouldn't let me post that with the link to the article that i was just reading wrt. every time i try to post the link i get an error.

utilitymord

it includes bits tho like

Laura Horsley, who does communications and marketing for a trade association, bought $20 worth of Quick Pick tickets at a downtown Washington, D.C., liquor store Friday. But Horsley, who said she won't buy a lottery ticket unless the jackpot tops $100 million, remained realistic.

"I don't actually think I'm going to win, and I don't believe in superstitions or numbers or anything like that," she said. "I just figured it's right around the corner. I'd be crazy not at least to give it a shot."

and

In Indianapolis, college student Chris Stewart said he showed up at the lottery's headquarters at 6:30 a.m. to be first in a line.

"I've never seen a jackpot like this before," said Stewart, who bought five additional tickets. "If I won -- I mean wow! I just don't know what I'd do. I'd really have to think what I could do with it."

For David Kramer, a lawyer in Lincoln, Neb., buying his Mega Millions ticket wasn't about "the realistic opportunity to win."

"It's the fact that for three days, the daydreaming time about what I would do if I won is great entertainment and, frankly, a very nice release from a normal day," he said.

i fucking bet. the house is coming down around us. quick, fantasize about the deeds + feats that kind of money could purchase

yeah for some reason LOTS of people have this mentality of "i won't play the lottery until it hits [X] dollars" which is incredibly stupid but is def the main factor behind the insanity we've seen this week

i'm sure there are a lot of bad essays being written on the subject as we speak

I'm glad nobody won tonight I'm gonna buy a ticket for next time

I don't play the lottery (or, rather, I hadn't in 10 or 15 years). I just bought a ticket on a last-minute whim. Whatevs. It netted me, like, a free pack of gum.

i want to buy a ticket so i can participate in this broad american human experience of waiting to see which one of us the fates will chose (i'll be rooting for me, k?)

the buck that bought the bottle could've netted a free pack of gum

why is there no ilx pool? i'd give you each a million; lil extra to whiney for his wedding

sometimes when i really want something, i bargain for it with god. i'll be like, "god, i really need this. student loans are high, i have a family, i'd like to own a house one day, etc," and then i'll try to negotiate for it like, "god, i will donate so much to charity and really glorify your name, come on." but ~600 million dollars winning from a lottery ticket it seems a little presumptuous to ask for. what the fuck will i do with ~600 million dollars? i don't really need that money. of course, by that logic, by living in the united states in 2012 i'm living a far more comfortable and privileged life than almost anyone in the world and certainly more than the vast majority of human history. so i really shouldn't ask for anything. if the future is a utopia, then maybe i do have a right to feel impoverished by future-humanity standards of living. of course, if it's a dystopia, this could be the best time + place etc to be alive and posting on ilx is like the pinnacle of human achievement / decadence. it's all downhill from here.

this shit is willy wonka level at this point, there were lines everywhere all day. and yes at root it is basically an antirevolutionary measure.

smoke weed every day

(by which i don't mean "there would be a revolution if we didn't have a giant lottery", just, you know, it does its escapist bit for the mollifying collective hallucination)

if mordy wins the lottery maybe he could pay my dealer to answer his phone

being on a college campus i guess i was pretty insulated from all the madness, i mean people were talking about it but i didn't get to see any of the lines

i don't know how i'm going to win without a ticket. tho i hear that the chance of winning the lottery is statistically zero. so maybe i have an equal chance of winning the lottery without buying a ticket as i do with buying a ticket.

this is one of my favorite tweets ever, so true too https://twitter.com/#!/desusnice/status/185055221540601856

you know it's over already right mordy?

i don't want 600 million dollars

i want one million dollars. maybe two, just in case

xp so you're saying that if reality is going to ripple and a sack of 600 million was going to fall from the lacuna into my lap, it would've already happened?

I'd be okay with just being stoned almost to death.

if u guys don't think we need to appeal to metaphysics here to parse 600 million dollars being distributed to one person w/ odds of 1 out of 170 million...

It's probably much more likely that 200,000,000 of us won $3, yeah?

yeah for some reason LOTS of people have this mentality of "i won't play the lottery until it hits [X] dollars" which is incredibly stupid but is def the main factor behind the insanity we've seen this week

your odds are equally shitty if the jackpot is $50 or $550 million - might as well wait to waste your money on big jackpots, if you're not going to play routinely.

might as well use your money to roll some joints really, right?

if you're supplying, sure

Student brought lottery tix to class today -- we all chose numbers, arranged the tickets on a table, touched them simultaneously, and vowed (informally) to share if any of us won (unlikely, but hey you never know, and they're good people, I trust them enough.) None of us won, but two of my lucky numbers came up!!

All hail 23 and 38!! I'm just upset I didn't get more than those two.

didn't 23 come up twice?

Rise and grind bright and early, players.

23 is an obvious lucky number, but 38 is my secret weapon and I missed my chance to use it to win MEGAMILLIONS. Kinda disappointed now that I've seen the numbers, tbh.
Also today has been thoroughly awful, and the spoiling of my magic numbers is like rancid frosting on the turd.

your odds are equally shitty if the jackpot is $50 or $550 million - might as well wait to waste your money on big jackpots, if you're not going to play routinely.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Saturday, March 31, 2012 4:03 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

article on slate recently says this isn't the case

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/do_the_math/2001/08/is_powerball_a_mugs_game.html

"Cumulative-jackpot lotteries such as Powerball are essentially a massive transfer of value from the dupes who play when the jackpot is small to the wiser ones who wait until the jackpot is big, with the house taking a healthy cut along the way."

Question - some of the states use lottery sales to fund things like education, does that apply to Mega Millions and Powerball? Does it go to the states?
(got one number :P)

Winning Tickets Sold:
Match 5 + 1 Jackpot Winners: IL(1), KS(1) and MD (1) Match 5 + 0: Winners in AR(1), AZ(3), CA(29), CO (2),CT(1), DE(1), GA(6), ID(2), IL(11), IN(1), KS (1), KY(4), LA(2), MA(5), MD(4), MI(6), MN(4), MO (1), NC(4), NJ(5), NM(1), NY(17), OH(10), OK(1), PA(5), RI(1), SC(1), SD(1), TN(2), TX(14), VA (5), WA(5), WI(3) and WV(1)

that's a huge split pot

jesus...

There are only 3 winners who matched the 5 numbers + the MegaBall; they'll split the $640,000,000.

The others -- matched 5 numbers, but didn't match the MegaBall -- won the 2nd prize, which is $250,000, and not split among the winners.

Matt thanks for that Slate article, very interesting.

i was rooting for Cankles b/c this is what he told us he was gonna do if he won:

if i win the lottery im gonna hire someone to go to your houses and snap your napoleon dynamite dvds in half

― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Friday, March 30, 2012 2:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

:D

Yeah, well, I'm gonna use the $3 I won to buy three used copies of Napoleon Dynamite to send to random ILXors.

plz make sure I am not random