So, If you won POWERBALL, would you.....

[scottorock]

give up collecting reels and collect something a little more net worth appropriate, like ISLANDS?!? Or maybe get an island just for your reels? At 1.3 BILLION and rising, a sole winner is looking at almost a BILLION after taxes. Youd be richer than almost all of the athletes you follow and movie stars you watch in as long as it takes to draw a few random numbers. Mind bogglin' if you stop to think about it! To all here that are gonna wager, GOOD LUCK! Im not sure if its possible with not-for-profit rules, but maybe theres a way could all PayPal Roger and get a pool going on here as well? Or we each buy tickets from our own states and post a pic? Eh, probably not a good idea now that I think about it for 30 seconds. Money IS the root of all evil.

[BAP-62]

First I would do is see my accountant. Then Make a lot of people VERY happy. Then I would have a blast.

[Tightlines666]

I have been in a pool at work for some time now. We all joke that if we win, our government office will be forced to shut down.

[Midway Tommy D]

A local couple we know won 61 million 2 years ago. They had to go underground for about a year because of so many donation requests and they took their kids out of school for awhile due to kidnapping & ransom threats. Luckily they went to an attorney & financial adviser and had a plan place before they claimed it, but they still had to go away until things calmed down.

I'l never win 'cause I won't buy a ticket, but if I was the sole winner I'd implement a hostile take over of Berkshire Hathaway. Eventually it would all be turned over to charitable causes.

[dbummee]

Saint Jude's Hospital would get a sizeable gift. Scholarships for needy and deserving high schoolers,
and making a lot of children happy at Christmas time.

Tom DuRose

[scottorock]

Yeah, probably the right move to lay low and get it all figured out before claiming that kind of dough! Ive heard some horror stories around these parts as well. People are strange...

[reelsmith.]

They had to go underground for about a year because of so many donation requests and they took their kids out of school for awhile due to kidnapping & ransom threats.

That's nuts. There are already plenty of millionaires out there to pick on.

If I lucked into that kind of money my family, a few friends and several charities would make out well.

Dean.

[Midway Tommy D]

That's nuts. There are already plenty of millionaires out there to pick on.

Agreed, but it's quite true. Scott is being kind when he says:

People are strange...

I also know one of the 2006 365 mil "Lincoln 8". He actually resorted to changing his name. 10 years later he still gets hit up regularly for funding donations, even after the name change & moving to a different city.

[Chuck Gano]

i would never see another snow flake, ever!

[Brian F.]

Seems like there's a "genie and the three wishes" type of lesson in all of this somehow.

[MrHeddon]

By a place in ely MN, to musky fish, a place in Galveston TX to fish the gulf and a place in Barnagat NJ to striper fish. Win every bid on ebay!

[john elder]

Mark Cuban had some good thoughts/suggestions for the winner(s)...two I thought were particularly relevant:

-If you weren't happy yesterday, you won't be happy tomorrow. It's money. It's not happiness.
-If you were happy yesterday, you are going to be a lot happier tomorrow. It's money. Life gets easier when you don't have to worry about the bills.

[wrong99]

I think a billion would probably bring me back close to even, so I'd likely be doing the same old thing.
Mark

[bettybarr]

We were listening to Coach John Calipari on his post game presser last night. By the way, we beat Mississippi State. He said that over the weekend he bought 15 Power Ball tickets and when the team came over to his house, he had each of them buy a ticket for $2. Then he asked them the ubiquitous question. They all had ways they would spend all that cash. Then he told them they had a one in 292 million chance of winning. Then he hit them with the lesson. "You already have a ticket!! Sure, it may be 20 to 1 or 50 to 1 but you have a ticket with a far better chance of winning. All you have to do is decide you want the reward. You have to FIGHT!!!" Nice analogy huh? Maybe our collections are our tickets!!!

[Mike N]

I'm from a family of 8 kids. My dad was a very large man, a combat-wounded retired US Army officer who would take a five-mile walk every Sunday across the nearby state line into Pennsylvania to buy that state's lottery tickets (Bible-Belt WV did not yet have a lottery).

One day my pops came back to the house and I asked how his lottery numbers had done.

He looked me square in the eye and said, "About a hundred yards from the store I had this very strong premonition that this week I had finally won. And I thought about how it could change all our lives. So I tore up the ticket and turned around and walked back home."

I've never bought a lottery ticket since that day. True story.

[john elder]

well, just cancelled the order for the Lambo.....our pool of folks with our 100 tickets reaped the powerball #10 on two auctions for a grand total of 6 bucks! woohoo.. just goes to show just how powerful math is!

[MrHeddon]

I didn't win, but I am happy as you can be. I can fish 12 months a year in Texas. plenty of huge catfish to catch during the winter months, delicious crappy to eat all year and extra large bass to catch come spring. Seeing my Daughter and grand daughter every day makes it even better. An eight pound largemouth is huge in Jersey where I came from. I will easily beat that now that I am here. more reels to collect as well.

[SC Fly Guy]

Sorry, that we didn't win ... I would endow ORCA and a few other boards I frequent to express appreciation for all the great info I get. I'm not a regular lottery player. I joke that I don't play because I took math! In actuality, game theory suggests test when the payout divided by the odds of winning is > 1, it's worth dropping the $2 to play.

Better luck next time!

[RAM]

Quote: "game theory..." Things to consider:

Most people who bought tickets bought more than one
Most of them cannot afford to throw money away-not even $2
Most lottery winners (70 percent) became bankrupt within five years (source Vanderbilt Univ. study)-and will have endured other miseries
The odds of winning this one were still 292,000,000 to 1 regardless of game or any other theory

Bad Bob

[john elder]

So what's your point, BB??

[scottorock]

Even sports or movie stars go broke with poor money management. Invest (not aggressively) the principal and spend the interest/dividends. It was calculated that if a sole winner of this last Powerball took the lump sum and used this strategy, they would be bringing in 600K a month with the interest. And still have 500 mill or so in the bank. I threw a few bucks at that chance! I agree though, allot of folks play the lotto's because that is their ONLY financial plan. Its fun to day dream the "what ifs", but wiser to live according to the "right nows".

[john elder]

I heard this AM that the average citizen has .... Wait for it!....$1200 put away toward retirement!

So that being true, it may well be that 2buck lottery tickets are perceived by these folks to be a viable plan

[wrong99]

If I hadn't been a Teamster for 25 years, that's probably about what I would have retired with. Maybe a little less.
Mark

[scottorock]

And that 1200 will probably go towards their credit card debt. Its funny, years ago, it was recommended to acquire debt to build credit history. Recently, the best investment is to pay off debt because you will get a better return. A dollar paid is a dollar not owed. I suppose thats because of the low return on CD's, money markets, and Govt bonds and such.

[SC Fly Guy]

Quote: "game theory..." Things to consider:

Most people who bought tickets bought more than one
Most of them cannot afford to throw money away-not even $2
Most lottery winners (70 percent) became bankrupt within five years (source Vanderbilt Univ. study)-and will have endured other miseries
The odds of winning this one were still 292,000,000 to 1 regardless of game or any other theory

Bad Bob

I certainly didn't mean to turn this into a financial or moral discussion ... I was just pointing out what game theory says. In spite of its name, it's a viable discipline. Game theory also suggests that buying more than one chance doesn't appreciably increase the odds of winning and, thus, is not a worthwhile investment. I don't gamble or play the lottery routinely as I prefer for my disposable income to go to vintage rods and reels, fine knives, fishing adventures, etc.