Powerball Fantasies

[jennegatron]

Trusts are basically financial accounts that have to satisfy certain terms in order for that money to be accessed. So as part of an inheritance you could receive a trust that you're not allowed to access until you're 25 for example. You can set them up so that the money can't be spent in 'unapproved' ways.

[Mangela Lansbury]

 Which one?

 

Sorry, I'm not prepared to provide an exhaustive list. I'd start with the cute Chrises and go down the line from there.

[Twig]

My actual real answer is that the first thing I would do is pay off my debt and the debt of all my family and friends (including internet friends, you lovely people you).

 

The second thing I'd do is quit my job.

 

The third thing I'd do is hire someone to calculate how much I'd need to keep to live comfortably off interest until the day I die, and not spend more money than that.

 

The fourth thing I'd do is move to a nice tropical calm beach somewhere, invite a friend to open a beach bar with me, and run that while making silly little games in my free time. The beach bar would be a super quiet one with like thirty regulars and hopefully avoid any major touristy events, like spring break or whatever.

 

The fifth thing I'd do is look into where I could put the money I don't need beyond the interest wages into charity and whatnot, 'cause fuck I do not need all that money.

 

The sixth thing I'd do is write a will to put the rest of that money into charity when I die, because the way my life's going I'll never procreate and thus have no reason to pass it on to anyone! Although if I had that much money I'm sure someone would find me attractive. ):

 

---

 

Alternatively I'd immediately put it all into whoever seems the best bet for inventing the immortality drug and hedge my bets on them finishing before I die.

[Bjorn]

What business might you go into? Something less profitable?

 

Whatever the lady wanted to pursue, since most of the last decade has been focused on my current business.

[syntheticgerbil]

I do not play any lotteries so I have 0 chance, but I was thinking earlier I'd probably start an animation studio, spend 10 years to make a movie that wasn't very good and then still feel proud of myself.

[Cordeos]

I've thought more about my answer. Quit job, buy a villa somewhere in the Mediterranean region with a small farm. Have my staff grow lots of food. Cook everything from scratch while listening to audiobooks.

[Dinosaursssssss]

The fourth thing I'd do is move to a nice tropical calm beach somewhere, invite a friend to open a beach bar with me, and run that while making silly little games in my free time. The beach bar would be a super quiet one with like thirty regulars and hopefully avoid any major touristy events, like spring break or whatever.

 

I didn't have an answer coming into this thread, but probably this. I like this so much I'm gonna go drink a bermuda yacht club and work on this game right now.

[Jov]

I'm winning $2 by not buying any tickets like the rest of you suckers. My wife participated in a $350 office pool, though. I'll spend my $2 on half a cheese pizza slice.

[Twig]

I didn't have an answer coming into this thread, but probably this. I like this so much I'm gonna go drink a bermuda yacht club and work on this game right now.

It's honestly my number one dream to be able to do what I described.

[Griddlelol]

I'm winning $2 by not buying any tickets like the rest of you suckers. My wife participated in a $350 office pool, though. I'll spend my $2 on half a cheese pizza slice.

 

Margherita pizza > millions of dollars. You made the right choice.

[jennegatron]

I know that I didn't actually buy a ticket instead just used this as a 'what would you do with a lot of money' exercise. I bet there are other people here who did the same.

[Twig]

I know that I didn't actually buy a ticket instead just used this as a 'what would you do with a lot of money' exercise. I bet there are other people here who did the same.

 

Yeah same. I'm not throwing my money away on gambling. I'm DEFINITELY not contributing to the shit show that is the lottery in America.

[Bjorn]

I did buy $10 worth of tickets, fun enough to dream with the lady about what we'd do.  However, after reading this article, I did regret it some.  I pay no attention to the lottery, so I had no idea that last year they altered the structure of the game to specifically create larger jackpots, including massively increasing the likelihood of a billion dollar jackpot, all in the name of increasing sagging sales and whipping up a media frenzy about the biggest jackpot ever.  It was some incredibly effective manipulation. 

[Professor Video Games]

Bjorn, I had basically the same experience. I bought a ticket for the Saturday drawing just for funsies before seeing an article about how the odds were changed. It's weird, because I know the lottery is bullshit anyway, but that move really offended me for some reason. I guess just because of how blatantly manipulative it is.

[SecretAsianMan]

The guy next to me at work has a large spreadsheet in which he's done a lot of statistical analysis of the lottery, including the changes mentioned.  Part of that analysis is how they do small things to try and massage the outcomes to appear more "random".  He's come up with a complex system that reduces the odds by a significant margin (from 1 in 292 million to about 1 in 1.5 million) but it's still a crazy long shot.  He puts together a pool when the pot is big enough and I threw in a few bucks for the heck of it.  Had it hit (and assuming there are no other winners) I would have gotten $17 million.

[Bjorn]

Honestly, maybe a pattern could be identified, but that really sounds like the same kind of reasoning some hardcore gamblers I've known have come up with.  There have only been something like 2500 total powerball drawings, with the rules changing over time.  This was the 7th time they've changed the number of balls in play.  I can't imagine with that sample size that there would even be enough data to start to show a pattern. 

[SecretAsianMan]

It's not about pattern recognition, it's statistical likelihood.  They like to advertise that each number has an equal chance of occurring but they do some trickery in that area to try and force that to happen, the result of which is that certain combinations are less/more likely.  I'm not a statistician so I can't really explain it properly (mostly because I don't fully understand it myself).

 

Also I should note that this guy is insanely smart and most definitely not a gambler.  This is maybe the second time in five years I've seen him actually do the pool.

[Badfinger]

I put in $4 for two tickets in a company office pool. I refer to it as the Camaraderie Tax. It is me donating $4 to indulge the company in our collective daydreams for a day or two, and for us to all be included in something.

[Bjorn]

[Dewar]

It's odd to me that they effectively one day made every single ticket that you buy worth less, and nobody threw a fuss. If I were in a betting pool that had 1-100 odds one week, then they wanted the same amount of cash for 1-200 odds next week, I wouldn't keep playing.

[Professor Video Games]

Well to be fair, the way they did it made the odds of winning a non-jackpot prize higher. So maybe it evens out?

[Badfinger]

No it's worse than that. At one point they doubled the price of the tickets, too.

[Bjorn]

I looked it up earlier to see how many changes have been made.  Since it's inception in '92, the odds of winning the jackpot have gone from about 1 in 54 million to 1 in 292 million, while the price of a ticket has doubled. The odds are astronomical no matter what, but they do just keep getting more and more so. 

[Griddlelol]

I think they did the same thing in the UK. They increased the number of balls with numbers on, in a (successful) attempt to 1) increase large number roll-overs and 2) entice more people to play thanks to 1). 

 

It's pretty gross, but I always thought the idea of a lottery to be pretty gross anyway. I can't believe it's a thing in the USA. I thought it would be anathema to the work hard/get rich/personal responsibility ethos that many Americans have.

[Bjorn]

There's a secondary vein that runs through Americans that amounts to, "I should be able to get rich with little to no work".  In American mythology, you can see it present in things like the California Gold Rush and the Oklahoma Land Rush (both of which actually took a lot of work, but still include the idea of a rapid reversal of fortune).  In a more modern setting, things like discovering oil on your property fits the same idea and how ridiculously successful get rich quick schemes are in this country (successful in terms of making their creators a lot of money).