LOTTERY WINNER...what if ?
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Anyone, including me, that knows how math and probability works just creamed their shorts deciding how to destroy your reply. I've got Gambler's Fallacy, someone else rock the fact that people will naturally choose birthdays leaving higher numbers increasingly untouched, which is a good strategy in terms of not having to divide money, however the chances of winning do not increase.
With the emergence of the huge mega lotteries at times it's stupid not to play. Occasionally the expected value of the tickets is greater than the cost, but even still when the jackpots are so big the infinitesimal chance of winning likely outweighs the opportunity cost of buying a ticket. I still think it's dumb to buy more than one ticket though because that first ticket increases your odds almost infinitely, but each subsequent ticket adds practically nothing to your odds of winning.
Daidraco
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Shit, I dont think anyone really knows the answer to this question until they actually do have the money. Ive heard stories about people saying they would help their family etc. etc. and then turn into greedy SOB's as soon as they cashed the voucher. Others that say that they would go nuts with partying ended up investing it all. Those that say theyre investing the money, blowing it all on partying. I personally think I would invest most of it, but I sure as fuck like to party with friends.
Powerball reached something like 587.5 million last year. Crazy
Depends upon the size, but a large lotto win?
I'd keep 10MM for myself and set up trusts that are backed by modest investment strategies that dole out annual payments to various worthy causes as determined by me and held in perpetual trusts.
Of that 10MM, I'd promptly take 5MM of it and fuck my way across Europe to Asia. If there was anything left of me when I reached Japan, that remnant would be flown home on a chartered jet, placed in an empty cigar box, and buried under the tall oak tree that stands in the backyard of my childhood home.
I'd keep 10MM for myself and set up trusts that are backed by modest investment strategies that dole out annual payments to various worthy causes as determined by me and held in perpetual trusts.
Of that 10MM, I'd promptly take 5MM of it and fuck my way across Europe to Asia. If there was anything left of me when I reached Japan, that remnant would be flown home on a chartered jet, placed in an empty cigar box, and buried under the tall oak tree that stands in the backyard of my childhood home.
I would get all the money in cash. Then i would pile it up in bricks and sleep on it, sleeping the sweetest dreams a man could dream. Then i would get hookers and blow.
TrollfaceDeux
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Daidraco
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After some thought - I figure a nice ass bar/dance/venue club in a vacation area would be hot shit to run. Since you have the money to burn, you've built it big enough for a huge audience (Bigger than "The National" in Richmond, Va, for example.) Pay some hot shot club managers to come in and help with feedback etc. Pay for big bands to come visit your location year round.
Why a bar/club/venue? Because the location is at your discretion - you choose it. The building its in? You built it. Hell, turn the son of a bitch into a hotel with the top floor being your own personal suite. No idea if it would ever make the money you spent on it back. But dammit, I think it would be the best damn time you could have in your life being obscenely rich and owning something like that. Put it on a lake and have your own personal fleet of boats, sea doos, etc. Helicopter pad on the roof. Shit, the more I think about it - the closer it resembles something off of Grand Theft Auto.
Why a bar/club/venue? Because the location is at your discretion - you choose it. The building its in? You built it. Hell, turn the son of a bitch into a hotel with the top floor being your own personal suite. No idea if it would ever make the money you spent on it back. But dammit, I think it would be the best damn time you could have in your life being obscenely rich and owning something like that. Put it on a lake and have your own personal fleet of boats, sea doos, etc. Helicopter pad on the roof. Shit, the more I think about it - the closer it resembles something off of Grand Theft Auto.
Aaron
Goonsquad Officer
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I subscribe to a small lottery for one ticket, costs $4 a month. Half the proceeds from ticket sales goes towards charity and half towards running the lottery and winnings, so I look on it as if I donate $2 to charity each month and $2 to a "gambling habit". I've done this for years now and never won a dime, not even those tiny winnings, but the cost is so small I can't be arsed to quit.
As for winning, yeah I agree that it probably depends on your age. Let's see:
0-10: Buy toys, buy Toys'r'us, buy a house made of lego, hire Johnny Depp to be a pirate at your BD parties.
11-20: Hire a kickass tutor to help me get top grades in HS+College and do all the mundane stuff for me like write reports. Hire famous bands to play at my BD parites, buy a limo and go to school in style, spend RL money on in game items/gold.
21-30: Travel the world with a new girl for every trip or "fuck my way across Europe and Asia" as someone said, buy a small and good European brewery and rename the brand to something cool I decide on, buy a sports car, buy all the games on Steam, buy Steam.
31-40: Find a good girl, marry her, buy a large house with a maid, cook and someone to look after my collection of cars, enrol my kids into expensive private schools and give them home tutoring as well, make sure they have a great life, buy a yacht and vacation on it.
41-50: Hire a PI to watch over my kids and make sure the only stupid shit they do won't fuck up their lives completely, buy a sports team and rename it something silly, start banging the maid and/or the cook, set up a charity.
51-60: Divorce the wife, marry the maid and/or cook, buy a Ferrari, hang out with my sports team and get drunk on my European beer, have a mid life crisis in style.
61-70: Divorce the maid and/or cook, settle down in Florida, find a good third or fourth wife (depending on if I married both the maid and cook, or just one of them), spend lavish amounts of money on my grand children, complain.
71-80: Get that expensive and illegal organ transplant in Israel, hope to live for another 5 years, try not to piss myself, buy some Viagra, buy Phizer.
81-90: Donate a shit ton of money to geriatric research to try and find some way to make the pain stop.
91-100: Hire 24/7 well armed security guards to watch over my comatosed body so that none of those ungrateful heirs get their money by pulling the damn plug!
As for winning, yeah I agree that it probably depends on your age. Let's see:
0-10: Buy toys, buy Toys'r'us, buy a house made of lego, hire Johnny Depp to be a pirate at your BD parties.
11-20: Hire a kickass tutor to help me get top grades in HS+College and do all the mundane stuff for me like write reports. Hire famous bands to play at my BD parites, buy a limo and go to school in style, spend RL money on in game items/gold.
21-30: Travel the world with a new girl for every trip or "fuck my way across Europe and Asia" as someone said, buy a small and good European brewery and rename the brand to something cool I decide on, buy a sports car, buy all the games on Steam, buy Steam.
31-40: Find a good girl, marry her, buy a large house with a maid, cook and someone to look after my collection of cars, enrol my kids into expensive private schools and give them home tutoring as well, make sure they have a great life, buy a yacht and vacation on it.
41-50: Hire a PI to watch over my kids and make sure the only stupid shit they do won't fuck up their lives completely, buy a sports team and rename it something silly, start banging the maid and/or the cook, set up a charity.
51-60: Divorce the wife, marry the maid and/or cook, buy a Ferrari, hang out with my sports team and get drunk on my European beer, have a mid life crisis in style.
61-70: Divorce the maid and/or cook, settle down in Florida, find a good third or fourth wife (depending on if I married both the maid and cook, or just one of them), spend lavish amounts of money on my grand children, complain.
71-80: Get that expensive and illegal organ transplant in Israel, hope to live for another 5 years, try not to piss myself, buy some Viagra, buy Phizer.
81-90: Donate a shit ton of money to geriatric research to try and find some way to make the pain stop.
91-100: Hire 24/7 well armed security guards to watch over my comatosed body so that none of those ungrateful heirs get their money by pulling the damn plug!
Build myself a fucking castle with a moat. The walls to my castle will have gargoyle merlons with a laser tripped safety system that would spew fire at anybody that comes within range.
Djay
Trakanon Raider
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Even with super high jackpots, I think your expected value is still negative.
Powerball jackpot odds are 1 in 175,223,510. At $2 a ticket, you need a $350 million jackpot to break even, assuming you don't have to split it with anyone who chose the same numbers. Factor in taxes, even the $470 million or whatever it was makes it either a negative EV or very close to negative. Maybe my math is wrong here. Of course I'm considering only the odds of winning the jackpot while ignoring smaller prizes.
Even if the EV was positive, your realistic expectation for a lottery ticket is strongly negative. So much of the positive expectation of a ticket comes from the jackpot, which is so rare as to be essentially irrelevant. If you lived forever, you want to look at strict EV. But since you'll almost certainly die before winning the jackpot even buying one ticket a day, the jackpot event should be weighted less than what the strict mathematical EV says. It's related to a common situation in tournament poker where you'll decline to call a large bet when your odds are low, even if it has a positive expectation, because survival is a big part of it. Yet in that same situation in a cash game you would happily take that risk.
Powerball jackpot odds are 1 in 175,223,510. At $2 a ticket, you need a $350 million jackpot to break even, assuming you don't have to split it with anyone who chose the same numbers. Factor in taxes, even the $470 million or whatever it was makes it either a negative EV or very close to negative. Maybe my math is wrong here. Of course I'm considering only the odds of winning the jackpot while ignoring smaller prizes.
Even if the EV was positive, your realistic expectation for a lottery ticket is strongly negative. So much of the positive expectation of a ticket comes from the jackpot, which is so rare as to be essentially irrelevant. If you lived forever, you want to look at strict EV. But since you'll almost certainly die before winning the jackpot even buying one ticket a day, the jackpot event should be weighted less than what the strict mathematical EV says. It's related to a common situation in tournament poker where you'll decline to call a large bet when your odds are low, even if it has a positive expectation, because survival is a big part of it. Yet in that same situation in a cash game you would happily take that risk.
I would probably continue to live the same, just with a big bank account. Hell, I would probably keep on working for a while too cause I actually enjoy all the people I work with. Travel when I could and such. Although, I feel like the type of person who will never win. At my old job we would have $100+ in lottery tickets every week, never came close to winning. And now 7 years of playing in a 5 person lottery pool that nets still $100+ in tickets every week, never came close to winning.
I've spent a dollar on much worse things than the lottery, so I don't mind buying a ticket when the jackpot gets up to 200m+. It's worth it for the entertainment value of discussing what you'd do with your winnings.
Also, more in line with the thread: The main thing I'd want to do is travel.
Also, more in line with the thread: The main thing I'd want to do is travel.