Do you plan to purchase a lottery ticket for the estimated $300 million Big Game jackpot?

I bought a ticket yesterday. One chance in several million is better than no chance. Also, I can live with out $1.

$300 million??? That's ridiculous. Why not make 300 people a millionaire?

I would, but I dont have access

vos: great idea. What about giving 3,000 people $100,000 each? That's enough for me.

lottery = stupidty tax.

vos - it's not really 300 million, they tax the winnings (upto 50%). Also, they usually dole it out slowly over 20 years.

Lottery winnings aren't tax free? Bummer.

msgman, our national lottery winnings are tax free aren't they?

I heard a very good statistical factoid on the radio about this one this morning; apparently, a guy (in Michigan, I think) bought $3500 worth of tickets for the Big Game. This improves his odds of winning -- to roughly the same as the odds of picking a random American and having that person turn out, by sheer chance, to be a former President.

There's some perspective for ya.

I don't gamble.

I don't have any plans to, but I have never ever bought a lottery ticket.

I don't gamble. I already have enough bad habits to increase my tax burden.

I joined in a group pool at work. I didn't have to deal with buying a ticket, and what the heck, it's worth a shot. Does anyone know what the lottery commission does with the money?

gilly: From the Massachusetts Lottery Commission FAQ, about 68% of the revenues go into prizes, 9% into operating expenses and the remaining 23% into local aid to towns & cities in MA. Other states do things like use the money for aid to educational institutions and for the arts.

I loved the scratch-offs in Ohio.. When I was in High School, I worked in a gas station and sold one to a woman who won $10,000 on it... There is NO lottery in NC. IT SUCKS... I miss it.. we will be in Ohio this week and will probably purchase a few tickets for fun.

No, and I also don't plan to take out my wallet and start tearing my bills into bits and tossing them to the wind.

jonathan - I thought Whitey Bulger got some percent as well!

I bought one for last Friday's drawing but not for last night's.

I'm not in a state which had it, and I likely would not have bought one if I had been in one. I will likely be middle-upper class without a lottery ticket, so let someone who needs it more win it.

My co-worker just walked into my office and announced that the average per-capita yearly lottery expenditure in Massachusetts is $552. ! And I don't think the people who wouldn't notice an extra $552 a year are the ones who are buying the tickets.

joachim: got that right. the habitual lottery-players are no worse than crack addicts; $10/day or every other is natural to them.
that said, and knowing the odd suck, we still dropped 5 bucks on a coupla numbers, in case Dobbsa was smiling.

Lottery: A tax on idiots.

... or a cooperative that people join, in which everyone agrees to contribute a bit so that some lucky few can gain a lot.

I once read a story about a womens' writing collective in which everyone donated money to a common pool regularly, and every six months one of the members of the collective would be randomly chosen to receive the money in the pool. The money would be enough to allow them to quit their day job for six months and just focus on their writing full time. I think that's neat.

I think it's pretty cool too! There are lots of those collectives around, especially in developing nations w/hyperinflation. One example described to me down in Brazil was for cars - you'd get 100 people together each contributing $100/month, with that money each month two people would get cars, one at random and one from a pre-determined order. That way, you knew you'd get a car within 50 months and potentially sooner if you got lucky.

I like the car co-op, too!

I live in NZ