Winning The Lottery Thought

The Sandbox General
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When I’ve explained my rationale behind my style of playing lottery, I’ve been told “well, that sounds very actuarial”.

I use the Connecticut lottery’s “advance action” feature – pick one set of numbers, and they’re played in the next n draws. I go in twice a quarter, once for Powerball, and once for MegaMillions/Lotto, redeem the expired ticket(s), and get a new one.

I only play a single set of numbers at one time (since the expected value of 100 sets of numbers isn’t significantly different than the expected value of 1 set of numbers). I don’t waste time monitoring individual draws or tracking whether the jackpots are large enough to be “interesting”. I think I’ve minimized the non-financial costs of playing the lottery…and really, this is the only form of recreational gambling I indulge in.

Mostly I’m just paying a few bucks to fuel an occasional daydream of “what would I do with so much money”.

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Just out of curiosity does anyone have their salary published in the statements of a listed company?

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If they do, I wouldn’t expect them to admit it. That narrows down their identity considerably and this is an anonymous forum.

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Fair point.

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I have no anonymity but I also don’t understand the question so probably not pubished.

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Suppose you earn all in 3.6m per annum and then the company puts that in the fin stats every year for 5 years. When people google your name in the top 5 links one of them puts out your income as approved by the board at the last agm. This would give you so much attention from friends and family it’s right there next to winning a lottery.

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I think it is possible to set up a trust and claim the prize in the name of the trust even in states that don’t allow anonymous claims. And I’ve heard there are ways of setting things up to make it very private if not totally anonymous that way.

And I’ve heard that it can be quite tiring and sometime dangerous being known as someone with that much money. People come out of the woodwork to try to get money from you for “investments” or “opportunities” or just to “help them out.”

“Friends” constantly asking for a few $$$, could be draining without considering all those strangers who just know you would be willing to invest in their idea if you heard about it.

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:bump:
I was scrolling through this thread because it was in my “Suggested Topics” and then this article showed up in my iPhone news feed:

Tl;dr via Chatgpt:

Cristy Davis, a Michigan Powerball winner of $70 million, is advocating for lottery winners to have the option to remain anonymous. Michigan law allows winners of local games to stay anonymous if they win over $10,000, but multi-state games like Powerball require disclosure. Davis’s identity was used without consent, leading her to emphasize the importance of protecting winners’ privacy and safety. She believes exposing winners’ names can lead to fraud and significant life changes, making anonymity an essential option for lottery winners.

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Theres no way they can remain anon. The state hands out millions to someone without it being checkable? No

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Would releasing the names to auditors be enough of a check?

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I think in some states you can set up a trust and the trust wins the lottery and then you are the beneficiary of the trust. So what gets reported to the public is Lucky Seven Trust won the lotto, but no one can tell that Lucky Seven Trust = Tommie Frazier .

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well, they will now when google points them to your post!

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I don’t think the public would go for that tbh. concerns of the public that their name would be out there should be considered when you buy the ticket. you don’t want it, don’t claim the prize IMO.

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Eh, it’s not Jeopardy.
There is a serious issue with winning that much money by chance: People start trying to take your stuff.

Then again, having some sort of auditing, so government people aren’t giving government money to their anonymous friends is important.

Should I win a lottery, I’d definitely want to keep that information to myself. And anyone who found out and then asked me to give stuff to them or to any person or charity, I’d probably cut them out of my life.
And if it got out, I’d probably move away from everyone I knew and start over again someplace else, until, of course, the locals there got wind of it. So, renting would be the way. Or an RV.

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“You can trust me and the State of XX. We really did pay out all of these lottery winners but they wished to remain anonymous.”

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Sorry Tommie. :people_hugging:

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Powerball at $1.2B for tonight’s drawing.

On a related note, my DD and SIL suggested I watch Jerry and Marge Go Large. It was a fun movie but didn’t explain enough of the math/stats that went into their strategy.

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Maybe the movie makers know their audience’s average math levels, which are below average.
Watching the trailer: “I’ve always been good at math” while showing him doing a Sudoku puzzle. There’s no math in Sudoku!
So, what loophole?? Is this based on “(inspired by”) the Iowa(?) scam that someone ran?

The McDonald’s Monopoly Game documentary was a little more interesting than this.

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watched it on a plane recently. it was Ok. agree they went weak on explaining the odds and how it happened specific to the loophole. They did touch on sample size and needing more tickets to ensure the window of results was tighter.