Thoughts On a Huge Powerball Lottery Jackpot

So many thoughts come to mind on tonight's huge Powerball jackpot lottery, worth 1 and 1/2 billion dollars, in pre-tax jackpot prize amount.  Herewith:

--Hopefully not just one person wins it. (Well, unless it's me, of course).  To say it's a huge sum of money is blatantly obvious, even an understatement. The likelihood one person could handle this is slim. Possible and unlikely but slim.

--Hopefully a person of small means, the middle or lower class wins it---one who, again, could handle it. I heard a report on the radio news that said when lottery jackpots like these get bigger, more wealthy people buy tickets. Let's hope someone who isn't already "loaded" wins this thing.

--Better yet, it would be great if a group of people won it and again, it didn't mess any of them up. That's hoping for a lot.

--As I write this, the jackpot is officially 1.5 billion dollars. By the time this comes up as a post, I feel certain it will be valued at 1.6 billion, at least. Not that it isn't already an insane amount of money. Possibly for one person.

--Huge as this jackpot is and as much good or bad as it could do for someone and for a group of people---thinking their family and friends---my personal hope is, for the good of anyone and everyone involved with this thing, hopefully it's won tonight. I can't begin to imagine how big it will be if not won tonight but 2 billion dollars does seem entirely possible. In that case, and the bigger it gets, all the more likelihood it would screw up yet more lives.

--The real winners on this thing? The person and people atop the business that is Powerball. It's like Vegas. The only real winners are the ones who own the casinos and machines themselves.

--It's gone a bit international, this Powerball:

Canadians flock to U.S. border towns 

in frenzy for Powerball tickets

Now people are talking about building a wall to keep Canadians out but for completely different reasons.

It's gotten even bigger, however. I spoke to a Facebook friend yesterday, from England, and he says they can buy and are buying them there, online and that he was going to:

Powerball lottery: Questions about legitimacy of online ticket brokers not stopping Canadians

--The winner would be helped and greatly if they are from one of the states where you don't have to declare who you are if you're the winner.  Like Kansas. (hint, hint).

--When a person does finally win this thing, besides solving financial issues for them and giving them great vacations, SO MUCH GOOD COULD BE DONE and for so many, many people across the state and nation and even the world, literally, and for the rest of that person's long, healthy, happy life and even beyond, really. Here's hoping that's what happens.

So there you are. Some thoughts, random thoughts on this huge, crazy Powerball jackpot drawing tonight.

Good luck to anyone and everyone out there, playing the thing.

You'll need it in at least a few different ways.

Links:  How the Powerball rules were tweaked to make the game an even bigger ripoff

The Biggest Powerball Jackpot Ever

The Fascinating Math Behind Why You Won't Win Powerball

24 Things That Are More Likely Than Winning the Lottery

Dear Powerball Winner: Take Our Advice and Take the Annuity

Everyone Is Freaking Out About The $1.5 Billion Powerball

How To Read Your Powerball Ticket

From--where else?--FB

On This Huge Powerball

This isn't actually possible because of taxes being deducted and their math, honestly, is WAY off and incorrect but something like it certainly makes more sense.



The payout in Missouri, if you take a lump sum payment, after taxes, is $572,260,000. That means it really would be possible to give more than 1 million dollars 572 Americans across the nation, anyway.

This would make FAR more sense and for all the following reasons:

--It would be far less likely to mess up one person or even a rather small group, if they were to win it as is.

--It would spread the money out over the nation and do far more good, across all the cities, counties and states. It would be far better for all these economies, as well.

--It would certainly be far better for the entire nation. It would strengthen state and federal tax coffers, as a side benefit, too--something heaven knows Kansas needs just now (eh, Governor Brownback?).

At worst, if it did or does mess up any lives---and it inevitably would--it would have a smaller destructive effect and the person or people would still have had some fun and done some good in the meantime, while blowing their own 1 million dollars.

Hey, we can dream, can't we?

(Meantime, poor Mr. Andolini. He's apparently put his name on this chart, it's bouncing around the interwebs and it has horribly incorrect math on it and attributed to him).

Links:  Powerball Jackpot Analysis

Powerball's $1.3 Billion Swindle Of Americans

Here's What To Do If You Actually Win The Lottery

The Powerball Lottery Just Now

So a couple of notes on the Powerball Lottery right now.

No one won last night's drawing. It was the largest jackpot prize for them ever. Seems it got up to 949.8 million dollars.

No Winner for $949.8 Million Powerball Jackpot

Crazy, no?

So now? What's the jackpot prize going to be for this Wednesday evening? Glad you asked.

No winning Powerball tickets sold; jackpot hits $1.3 billion

There is an entire likelihood, a strong possibility one person could and would walk away with a 1.3 billion dollar jackpot prize this week, before taxes. Someone who previously didn't have much money.


There are people in poverty---starving, in fact, literally----all over this planet.

We have a lottery with a prize of 1.3 billion dollars up for grabs this week, very possibly for one person to claim.  At 2 dollars a throw.

According to the USA Mega website, the cash payoff for this will be $572,260,000 after taxes. So that would mean if this were distributed more wisely, 572,000,000 people could be millionaires. Instead, one person will quite possibly get all of this.

It's like our business community. The heads of companies and corporations can and do take home hundreds of millions of dollars in pay while millions of Americans work full time jobs and aren't paid enough to make a sustainable living.

I'm just glad we, as a people, as humanity, as a nation, have our priorities straight so we can make this world work for everyone. I'm glad we figured out all that fairness and equality and justice and common sense, so long ago.

Aren't you?

Link:  USA Mega | Powerball and Mega Millions Lottery Results

Powerball Jackpot Analysis

On That Huge Powerball Jackpot Tonight

Once again, I am reminded of my two favorite quotes on millionaires.

"I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position." 

 --Mark Twain, US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

and 

"I've never been a millionaire but I just know I'd be darling at it."

--Dorothy Parker US author, humorist, poet, & wit (1893 - 1967)

Good luck, y'all.  Have a great weekend. Regardless.

Link:  $900 Million Prize, 1 In 292 Million Odds — And A Few More Lottery Numbers

Notes on a large Powerball jackpot prize

Literally that, notes on tonight's near-record Powerball jackpot prize drawing:

1) If you were one of 175,223,510 people (you can't imagine that many), standing, say, in the middle of them, and a mile up someone with a paper airplane was to gently push it out over that crowd, that's how likely it is you'd get the jackpot prize;

2) If we must have lotteries for millions--and apparently we must--someone needs to set one up where each winner wins, at most, 1 million dollars. It would spread the prize out over the region and state and nation and do far more good for far more people and it would be greatly less likely to mess people up with such large sums. Could you imagine if 600 people tonight each won $1 million, spread out equally over the entire country? It would do a nation of good, in not a world;

3) If no one wins tonight, it will get perilously close to 1 billion dollars for a jackpot prize Wednesday evening.

That's crazy.

4) If one person only wins this second-largest-ever jackpot prize, it will likely--very likely--screw them up.

That said, when it comes to lots of money, I defer to Mark Twain's quote:

"I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position."

And Dorothy Parker's:

“I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it.”

Good luck campers and have a great weekend.

Spain does it right on a big lottery

If nations must have lotteries--and apparently they must--it seems Spain does it a bit smarter:

Spain's 'El Nino' lottery hands out $1.1 billion

Sure, they handed out a load of money, but instead of just giving it to one winner, they distribute it:

MADRID (AP) — A lottery showered €840 million ($1.1 billion) on ticket holders in five regions of Spain on Sunday, in the midst of a deep recession and high unemployment.

 

The "El Nino" (The Child) lottery is held each Feast of the Epiphany — Jan. 6 — and the top prize tickets were sold in Alicante, Leon, Madrid, Murcia and Tenerife. The lottery's name refers to the baby Jesus, who according to tradition was visited this day by three kings of Orient bearing gifts.

 

The lottery tickets cost €20 ($26), and the most one can win is €200,000 ($260,240). But there's a catch. Thanks to new austerity measures aimed at reviving Spain's ailing economy, anyone who wins above 2,500 euros ($3,250) in the lottery has to pay 20 percent income tax on their windfall.

On Sunday, a cheering crowd gathered outside one ticket office in the southwestern Madrid suburb of Alcorcon where 200 of the winning numbers were sold, totaling €40 million ($52 million) in prize money.

I've written about this before, not that long ago.  Distributing lotteries, if we're going to have them, between more people could and should and would benefit from them, they would be far less likely to get or be really screwed up by such a large windfall of money and, finally, the benefit of the wins would be distributed across more economies, more towns, more cities, more counties and states.

It only makes sense.

Dear God, About that Powerball...

Dear God,

If you're up there (and surely it seems you're not), and if you really do intervene in people's lives down here (again, seems highly, highly unlikely), please, please make sure someone or, better yet, some big group of people who are very responsible and level-headed and intelligent and beneficent eventually wins this big Powerball lottery jackpot prize.

In the first place, it could do a great deal of good for a great number of people all across the nation and even the world, if done right.

In the second place, on the flip side, it could really, really screw up someone's life--or people's lives--if the person who wins it couldn't handle it and we've seen plenty of that in the past.

Just sayin', Lord.

If you're there, please make this make sense.

Amen.

Link: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/millions-chase-record-500m-powerball-175725660.html

A better thing happened with this lottery prize

According to the news this morning, as we all likely know by now, three different winning MegaMillions Lottery tickets were sold this week--one in Illinois, one in Maryland and one even in our own next-door-neighbor state of Kansas. Terrific. Excellent. Congratulations to the winners. And this is what should have happened, too, instead of having only one winner of what would have been a huge windfall. Having three winners instead of just one helps many more economies--the individuals who won, of course, the towns and areas they live in and the states they reside in, at least. Added to that, it's far less likely to "screw up" a person if, again, only one person won all that money. Sure, they could still get "screwed up." It's not like this prize, divided by 3 isn't still huge. Hopefully, it just makes it a bit less likely.

As it stands this morning, we are told the winning ticket in Kansas was sold in Northeast Kansas, a bit vaguely, so the person or persons who won can't be very far away from us, can they? Did you see where we Americans spent $1.5 billion on this lottery, this go-round? Wow. That's a lot of tickets. It's too bad even more people couldn't have all divvied up this prize, by my way of thinking. What should happen with lotteries--with a lottery, anyway--is that they should create one where each time there is a drawing, there are as many winners as there are each 1 million dollars. They could just do a live drawing each time. I think it would be exciting for people and "spread the wealth" far more healthily and wisely. It would be better for the people winning, make the likelihood people would win sooner that much greater and make it that much less likely, again, that people would be overwhelmed by the money and mess up their lives. Instead, polls seem to show people like the excitement of these huge jackpots. So it goes. For now, if you're reading this Mr. and/or Mrs. Kansas Megamillions lottery winner--enjoy. (And keep your head on your shoulders and feet on the ground). Link: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/kan-ill-md-tickets-share-lottery-jackpot-120924228.html

Someone in town is three million dollars richer, apparently

According to a friend's post on Facebook just now, the Royal Liquors store at 103rd Street here in town--Kansas City--sold the $3 million winning ticket that was drawn last evening for the Missouri Lotto Lottery. Start checking those tickets, folks.

Powerball doubling cost

Maybe you heard that already, that the Powerball lottery is going up in price by a dollar--doubling in price from $1 to $2. In a way, no big deal. At least for those who don't play. And that's why I write today--for those who do. First, do you know what the odds of winning are? The odds of winning the Powerball lottery, as their official website will tell you, is one in 195,249,054. Yow. Very nearly one in 200,000. Think about that.

Imagine you're one person, standing in a crowd of nearly 200,000 people, each with a lottery ticket, and someone of authority is going to somehow pick you out of that crowd for whatever reason. In this case, it would be to win that prize. Now, do you see how likely--unlikely, really--that is? And sure someone has to win it, of course, and you can't play if you don't win. I'm just saying, spelling out how extremely unlikely it is, that's all. Not meaning to rain on anyone's parade. Links: http://fox4kc.com/2012/01/02/powerball-prices-double-so-does-starting-jackpot/; http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/pricey-picks-powerball-tickets-doubling-15269485; http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_prizes.asp; http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/02/powerball-tickets-to-double-in-price/

What chutzpah

You might have seen this in the news in the last 24 hours:

Defiant lottery winner still uses food stamps

Here's another loophole they need to close.

Thank goodness it's Michigan.

Warnings should come with this kid's sudden good fortune

News out today tells of a 26-year old Southeast Missouri man who just won $200,00.00 a year for the rest of his life.

It seems one Aaron Cantrell of Advance, Missouri (I've never heard of it) put $20.00 down on a "scratchers" game and made his big win.

Good for him.

If I knew him, I'd certainly congratulate him.

But since I don't know him and can't congratulate him, I would give him the following warnings and words of unsolicited advice:

First, you probably shouldn't have released your name, if that was an option. You've probably already been accosted for all kinds of money from family and friends. You also should have disconnected your phone and got a new, unlisted number. If you didn't, that could still be a good idea.

Second, stay grounded. Stay focused. Don't lose touch with what's important in life and in the world. You're still just a schlub, like the rest of us. You've won a fortune, really, but you aren't any more important now, after the win, than you were before. Stay with good family and friends. Don't lose touch of them or, again, of what's important in life and the world.

Third, when/if you can, help people but let that be a bit later, after the wonderment and shock of this has subsided. If you go crazy giving things or money away now a few bad things could happen: 1) More people might hear about it and head your way with requests and 2) you could end up bankrupt, unbelievably. But believe it.

Fourth, if you do want to keep your job, as the article I read says, good for you. It could help you stay grounded. But be careful and wary of co-workers, even your boss. Your win could go to their heads. Be careful.

Fifth, don't give half away to a girlfriend. Seriously. A guy did that in Wisconsin and she ended up taking it and leaving him, shortly thereafter. Good people are good but money can change things.

Finally, you were wise in taking this $200,000 series of payments over your entire lifetime, rather than a lump sum payment. You're much less likely to get or be screwed-up by this large amount, spread over your lifetime, rather than one big payout of some millions of dollars. Again, good for you. It shows wisdom on your part. A lot of people don't show such intelligence.

Now, if you can just get through and past this current rush of attention from your family, friends, strangers and some media, and through the first year without any big problems, you could likely be headed for a far easier and wonderful life with a lot less stress and difficulties than if you hadn't won it.

But this first year--and right now--are crucial. You'll need more good luck getting through this.