If I won, I would give the vast majority of it away…I think it would be a burden to have that much money suddenly . I know that it is advised to not make any major purchases for at least 6 months…I think I could do that , but I would pay off mortgages and perhaps have a few things done around my house. I would love a new kitchen , likely custom cabinets from my favorite furniture maker.
I would love to have a landscape architect turn my yard into a bird and other wildlife paradise.
We don’t live in a state where winner can remain anonymous , so that would be a concern. As much as I would love to help people, I think that would need a team to manage that.
The odds of not winning is found most easily by using , for N → infinite:
e^x = (1+x/N)^N
N=292.2M is practically infinite, and for x=-1:
e^-1 = (1-1/N)^N.
I like discrete math, so I used a different method. Suppose there are N tickets sold. Consider a single number combination. The chance it is picked by a particular person is 1/292M. The number of tickets with that combination then falls into a binomial distribution of N trials, with success probability 1/292M.
So the chance that the combination is found on no tickets is binomial(N, 1/292M, 0). Where N=600M, that is approximately 0.128. That is the expectation of unpicked combos, per combo. Expectations add, even when they’re not independent, so binom(292M, N, 0) is also the chance that the winning combo was picked by nobody.
The nice feature of my method is that it also tells me the percent of combos that are picked by one person, by two people and so forth. With 600M tickets (which I now believe is too small, but we’ll go with it) 26% of the combos have one ticket, 27% have two tickets, and 18% have three tickets.
However mathematical statistics play out , SOMEONE is going to win and for a measly $2 , it is fun to dream.
If people are putting out a lot of money in the thought that they will increase their chance of hitting it big, then it is a problem IMO
Bought my ticket as a $2 insurance policy. Lots of people in my office pooled their resources to buy tickets. If they win, they’ll leave en masse. I just don’t want to be one of the unlucky few holding down the fort when they go!
I asked Mr: “What would you do if it turns out that your entire group bought and shared a winning ticket and then decided to quit their jobs?” An interesting thought… Replacing one highly specialized worker is a pain… Replacing 10-15 of them… Mission impossible.
Winning would ruin life as we know it. You’d have to leave your premises, probably forever as people would hound you relentlessly for money. Have to go into hiding basically forever. Honestly, it would be pretty terrifying all in all. Your children would be affected, people hounding them. Obviously with that kind of money they too would pack up and go into hiding. Dh and I decided we just want a million, not the whole thing.
I just checked Saturday night’s number details and I’m one of the elite 159,914 winners who picked one correct number plus the powerball so I have won $4 on that. Tonight’s prize is 2X so I have won $10 for spending $4. The last time I played was several years ago when the pot was huge. I will try not to let the $10 ruin my life. I will play again if no one wins tonight.
Chino Hills is nowhere near San Diego. It is fairly close to the Claremont colleges (less than 10 miles), so maybe it was one of our Claremont students (though honestly they d have no reason to go to Chino Hills, which as suburban-sprawl as you can get).
An interesting thought… Replacing one highly specialized worker is a pain… Replacing 10-15 of them… Mission impossible.
