If someone was really going to try to pull it off, I'd recommend they make it very public knowledge. If the public knew someone was going buying every single combination they'd be less inclined to purchase their own tickets knowing it would be a split pot at best.

I'm not saying it would have a huge impact, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

Also, someone spending $595M on tickets would also win a guaranteed $93.5ish million from all of the additional prizes - 25 $1M prizes for his 25 tickets that had all 5 numbers but missed the PB, all the way down to his ~7,626,000 tickets that had just the PB and won $4.

Lastly, I would assume you can deduct the gambling "losses" - $595M or so - from your winnings. Considering the peripheral prizes and the jackpot total, you'd expect roughly $900M in winnings, $305M of which is "profit". You'd owe slightly more than $139M in taxes for a "take home" of nearly $761M.

All of that being said, one other winner would make it unprofitable.

3 ...

Report Post

Posted by MrLarson

Member since Oct 2014

34984 posts

Posted on 1/10/16 at 12:00 pm to slackster

quote:
they'd be less inclined to purchase their own tickets knowing it would be a split pot at best.

Not with all the trolls in this country.

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by Dave Worth

Metairie

Member since Dec 2003

1830 posts

Posted on 1/10/16 at 12:23 pm to slackster

Don't forget...if someone laid out $600m for this week that would bump the payout up huge, right?

If roughly 50% of ticket sales go to the jackpot, then $1.2b would be around $1.5b in that case. Is this right or am I way off?

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by Walking the Earth

Member since Feb 2013

17260 posts

Posted on 1/10/16 at 2:44 pm to slackster

I don't see how anybody could really pull it off, even with an "army" of people filling out the slips.

Too much to coordinate in such a short period of time, not to mention that the person would actually have to outlay a couple of hundred million in cash to pay for it.

Bill Gates may be worth 60 billion plus but I'm not sure even he can just walk into his bank and have that much physical cash ready to go in less than 72 hours.