Euro Millions

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

Man wins £110,000,000 on the Euro Millions lottery. Winning Ticket was bought in Spain.

[Duke87 1,070]

That's 163 million USD.

Still less than half of the world record $390 million jackpot from Mega Millions. Or Powerball's highest, $365 million.

Althoguh, that £110 million is tax exempt. Lottery winnings in the US are not.

Something else worth pointing out:

The odds for a Powerball jackpot are 1 in 195249054. At one drawing a week, that's enough possible combinations of numbers to last 1.88 million years without repeating any . Which means that statistically, on average, a person would have to play for about 939,000 years before they won if they only bought one ticket each time. Figuring an average 60 years of your life in which you can legally play the lottery, you'd need to buy about 15650 tickets each time for hitting the jackpot once within your lifetime to be more probable than not. And that's just 50/50.

Granted, tickets are a dollar each... so if you've got $195,249,054 lying around, you can buy one ticket of every possible combination and be guaranteed a winner... but factoring in taxes, the jackpot would need to reach $264 million before this could possibly become profitable.... and even then, that only works if no one else hits the jackpot. Because in that case, you get to split the money with them.

Point being, if you actually buy these things thinking someday you're gonna win big... I've got a friend I'd like to introduce you to:

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

The jackpots here in the multi-state lotteries can top $200 million fairly regularly. I'd take the lump sum, who knows if any given person is going to live 20-30 more years.

Some gambles are worth taking, a buck that won't even be missed might be just enough. The owner of an RV dealership told me the story of a guy who won millions, but continued to play, and won a multi-million jackpot bigger than the first about 7 years later (after the second win, he bought a $6 million dollar motorhome).

[Randomtaskk 1]

Is your freind De Nial by any chance? Lol.

[Aontan 0]

Since he was in Spain, he won €126 million, not £110 million... just to be picky.  

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

Originally posted by: Aontan

Since he was in Spain, he won €126 million, not £110 million... just to be picky.  quote>

I am assuming that they're about the same, £110million was reported by the British press.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: manticorefan

Some gambles are worth taking, a buck that won't even be missed might be just enough. quote>

The problem is that it's "a buck that won't be missed" if you buy a ticket once. If you do it every drawing, that's $104 a year. I can think of plenty of things I'd rather spend $104 on than throwing it into a black hole hoping that I might get millions spit back out at me (which the odds are very against).

You do know that there are more deaths in car accidents every year than there are lottery winners, right? Mull that over for a bit.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Originally posted by: manticorefan

Some gambles are worth taking, a buck that won't even be missed might be just enough. quote>

The problem is that it's "a buck that won't be missed" if you buy a ticket once. If you do it every drawing, that's $104 a year. I can think of plenty of things I'd rather spend $104 on than throwing it into a black hole hoping that I might get millions spit back out at me (which the odds are very against).

You do know that there are more deaths in car accidents every year than there are lottery winners, right? Mull that over for a bit.

quote>

But yet, there are events that are many, many orders of magnitude even more unlikely, that some people put an awful lot of trust in.

[hym 358]

Originally posted by: manticorefan

But yet, there are events that are many, many orders of magnitude even more unlikely, that some people put an awful lot of trust in.quote>

You can't compare evolution with a lottery system.  The former is the logical result of the fact that science operates under paradigms that deny the existence of a god, whereas the latter is the result of human efforts to con citizens out of money "generate revenue" for the state.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: manticorefan

But yet, there are events that are many, many orders of magnitude even more unlikely, that some people put an awful lot of trust in.quote>

You mean like the universe being created in six days by a divine being?

At any rate, there's a big difference between believing a story of something which has already occured which may seem highly unlikely but which there is neverhteless tons of evidence supporting, and relying on the random outcome of something which has not yet happened.

[Meg 368]

The Mega-millions lottery in the USA has 12 states participating:  Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Washington, Texas, and California.

 

Just thought I'd say something that is on the topic of lotteries.

 

[rainyday 2]

So

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

The Mega-millions lottery in the USA has 12 states participating:  Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Washington, Texas, and California.quote>

Powerball came first, though, and encompasses more states. Connecticut is in it, New York is not. I live in Connecticut right over the state line from New York.

Several years back, when hubub was being made over how the powerball jackpot was going to be the highest ever, conveniece stores and gas stations all around became swamped with New Yorkers driving into Connecticut to buy Powerball tickets. My mother, who never plays the lottery and would say that gambling is foolish, even bought a few for the fun of it. The winner was some guy from Indiana.

I want to say this was in the summer of 1997. It was in the summer, at any rate, I remember it being discussed around the swimming pool. And it can't have been later than '97 since the numbers were definitely 1-45, which was changed that November. The record has since been broken several times, and jackpots over $200 million are no longer news since they changed the rules to drive the prizes higher.

And since New York joined Mega Millions in 2002, the invasions of Connecticut to buy lottery tickets have ceased.

Originally posted by: rainyday

So €126,000,000 is the record jackpot so far?quote>

For Euro Millions, yes. For any lottery in the world, not by far.

[Merlin of Flyote 8]

Lets face it,everybody has dreams, most people see the lottery as a chance of making their dreams come true. A few people become addicted to the lottery. That's basically the bear bones of it.