Posted on 10/16/2018 10:04:35 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Some lucky lottery players will walk away with huge winnings as the combined Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots now approach almost $1 billion. But let's get real: Chances are, it's not going to be you.
The odds of winning the combined $999 million jackpots stands at 1 in 88 quadrillion -- that's 88 thousand trillion, or the numeral 1 followed by 15 zeros, according to the Allstate Data Science Team. The previous odds, when the jackpots were smaller, stood at roughly 1 in 75 quadrillion.
To be sure, lottery players will have slightly better odds of winning either one of the jackpots. The odds of scoring the $654 million Mega MIllions prize is 1 in 302 million, while the $345 million Powerball is sporting odds of 1 in 292 million, Allstate said.
To grasp how unlikely even those odds are, it's worth checking them against the probability of other rare events. The likelihood of being struck by lightning within one's lifetime is 1 in 3,000.
You're also much more likely to date a millionaire, which carries a likelihood of 1 in 215. Even better, Americans have fairly strong odds of becoming a millionaire through work and investment, with economists at the St. Louis Federal Reserve calculating that people younger than 40 years old have a 1 in 55 chance of achieving a 7-figure net worth.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
I had a boss that said stuff like that. Told him the odds were still infinitely better than getting rich working for him.
Only 250M? Who can possibly live on that? LOL
It will happen on average once every 121 trillion years, or about 9,000 times longer than the age of the universe.
That's the way I look at it. I already have my dream house picked out and my dream truck built (on paper). All I need now is to win it to complete the purchase. Until then I can dream.
I don’t play the lottery, but I’ll play it today...if I win, we will be on the HGTV show ‘My Lottery Dream House’.
I do what I can. You’re welcome.
the odds of winning are 1:302 million and the payoff is greater than that so the bet is “in the money”... so it is a good bet...statistically speaking.
More chance of aliens visiting tomorrow and saying that stephen hawkking was all wet on black holes.
Yep. Win 380mm, you hit the highest tax bracket at 37% plus the asinine Obamacare tax, so federal rate is 40.4%. Arkansas has 7% state income tax.
Great, so I win Tue night. 380m x 0.562 (reciprocal of all taxes due) = 213,560,000.00 landing in my bank account. 21.356mm gets pulled out and put into a charitable trust for my church. 10% tithe, yo!
leaves me and Mrs DC with 192,204,000.00. Tax free net. Next we pay off all loans. House, car, etc.
Next invest in tax free munis @ 4% coupon = $7,688,160 tax free income from interest EVERY YEAR. When the bonds are called or mature, I still have my 192 million.
Id simply live off the interest and give a boatload away (with the interest-never principal).
Wish me luck Jim Rob!
I.always buy one ticket a draw for lottomax and 6/49.
I might buy two if the draw is large.
“So there’s a chance?” (a liberal)
It’s an entertainment tax and even math overachievers like to be entertained!
I will use my lottery draw, the 6/49, to explain the odds. As expressed as a fraction, (49x48x47x46x45x44)/(1x2x3x4x5x6) that works out to be about 1/13x10^6.
If you use that formula for the other draws, you’ll get the odds. Maybe winning both might be 1/88 quadrillion.
Years ago an old friend of mine won $250,000 in the CA State Lottery.
She bought one Ticket, the only time she ever played.
Rather than using Quick Pick, she chose the Numbers based on Family Member Ages and Birthdays.
The past two Megamillions I only spent $2 for 7 tickets. How? Because just before that I got 2 numbers plus the Mega number giving me a payout of $10 which I used to to buy 5 tickets, one of which gave me a Mega number payout of $2. So I chipped in another $2 and got 2 tickets for tonight’s drawing.
Wanted Freeper who will buy and mail, 1 Powerball ticket and 1 MegaMillions ticket before draw to this Canuck. I will donate $10 to FR or send you money. PM me.
The jackpots are not overstated. The stated amount is the total money you would receive if you took the prize in annual payments for however many years the lottery bases the jackpot on. The cash equivalent is the net present value of the total of the payments. The taxes are the taxes. Evasion is illegal. Avoidance is a duty.
The jackpot should be stated as NPV. To claim the total amount of payments over many many years, is to overstate the value of the jackpot.
It’s not “many many” years, it’s a finite number of years. A winner has the option to take the annual payments over the statute number or years or to take the NPV a.k.a. “cash equivalent”. It is not that complicated.
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