640 effing million

Lieslntx · Mar 30, 2012

Shit ... I win enough that stadium will have my REAL name on it.

Or at least my little part of the parking lot. ;D

imjustagirl · Mar 30, 2012

I just want you guys to know that when I win, I won't forget all you little people.

Football_Bat · Mar 30, 2012

Saw that there WILL be a winner tonight. Every possible winning combination has been bought.

Lieslntx · Mar 30, 2012

imjustagirl said:

I just want you guys to know that when I win, I won't forget all you little people.
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And I won't forget you either. I'll name one of the parking spots after you.

Michael_ Gee · Mar 30, 2012

The weird thing is, if you only buy one ticket, this is a value bet. The payoff to investment ratio is far better than the actual cosmic odds.

slappy4428 · Mar 30, 2012

txsportsscribe said:

buddy of mine always says he'd buy a convertible yellow corvette for his ex-wife, take it to her house and fill it with cement.
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I laughed out loud at that

playthrough · Mar 30, 2012

Football_Bat said:

Saw that there WILL be a winner tonight. Every possible winning combination has been bought.
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If the megaball is "lucky" 7, there might be 20 winners.

novelist_wannabe · Mar 30, 2012

Inky_Wretch said:

1 in 176 million!?! So you're saying there's a chance!
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Ok Wolowitz ...

I just ignore the odds. My attitude is this: If $640 million wants to come my way, I need to give it the opportunity. All the analysis? I really don't give a shit. People who poo-poo it, don't buy the ticket, OK? One less competitor for me.

The Big Ragu · Mar 30, 2012

Moderator1 said:

The Big Ragu said:

I am going to buy a ticket today, even though it goes against every principle I have. I will count it more as an entertainment expense than as an investment. This will be the second time in my life I have bought a lottery ticket.

I do a lot of trading of different instruments in my life, and my decisions are always driven by expected values. I do calculations in my head and on paper to figure out my odds of being successful, and then make decisions that maximize my odds of being successful. I try to give myself the highest expected value for the amount of money I put at risk.

Lotteries are horrible sucker's bets. Your expected value on your dollar is typically 50 cents or less, depending on the jackpot.

When I look at this jackpot, I start off like everyone else. Your odds are 1 in 176 million. And the payout is greater that $176 million. From what I read, after tax, you can expect around $230 million.

The problem is that there is no guarantee you will be the only winner. And according to something the Wall Street Journal blogged (http://blogs.wSportsJournalists.com/economics/2012/03/29/is-mega-millions-540-million-jackpot-a-good-bet/?mod=google_news_blog), lottery officials figure there is a 76 percent chance of someone picking a winner in this drawing, and if there is at least one winner, there will likely be two (actually, 1.9, on average). That would cut your winnings in half and lower your expected payout.

What is interesting is that as jackpots in these things go up, more people buy tickets, and it is pretty linear. And the more people who buy tickets, the more chance there are multiple winners, which lowers the value of any payout.

So for that blog entry, they relied on work a computer scientist did, which plotted the expected value of a ticket against the size of the jackpot and found that it looked kind of like a bell curve.

Up to a certain point, higher jackpots mean higher expected payouts, but after a certain point, the risk of multiple winners takes over and the expected payout goes down.

According to his calculation, the best time to buy a ticket is when the jackpot is $420 million. But even then the expected value of a ticket is just 69 cents.

So the bottom line is that you really are better off hanging onto your dollar.

And with that said, I am going to buy a ticket today, anyhow. I'll rationalize it away with the fact that I have wasted a dollar in lots of other ways without giving it so much thought.
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Ragu, you know I love you like it is no one's business. You're my brother, my main man, all that jank.

But GODDDDDDDAMNNNNNNN that is way way way too fucking much analysis over this.
It's a $1 lottery ticket. You have a shitball's chance in hell of winning and I don't need a calculator to tell me that. You have none if you don't play.

Jesus. My head hurts. My first mil is now going toward aspirin.

Second mil is for shoes.
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Yeah, but that's what I do. It's like asking a Zebra not to have stripes.

For what it is worth, I bought two tickets. One for me. One for my woman. She asked me why I was wasting money like that. I guess I found the right woman.

lono · Mar 30, 2012

schiezainc · Mar 30, 2012

I bought four tickets with some quarters I had plunked out of my little coin cup. I don't pretend to think I'm going to win. Don't really care if I do or don't. But, if I do, it'll be the best four dollars I've ever spent and that alone is worth saying 'to hell with it, it's only four bucks'.

FileNotFound · Mar 30, 2012

KJIM said:

pressboxer said:

Get a luxury box for the nearest NFL team just to see what it's like.
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Sounds fun, except my nearest NFL team is Jacksonville.
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I'd buy a luxury box at every NFL stadium, and get a Gulfstream and a pilot to take me to whichever game I wanted to watch that Sunday. I'd pour all the rest into Gannett stock.

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640 effing million

Lieslntx Active Member

imjustagirl Active Member

Football_Bat Well-Known Member

Lieslntx Active Member

Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

slappy4428 Active Member

playthrough Moderator Staff Member

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640 effing million

Lieslntx Active Member

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Football_Bat Well-Known Member

Lieslntx Active Member

Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

slappy4428 Active Member

playthrough Moderator Staff Member

novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

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