WOOT, come on 1 Billion Dollars!!!

I feel ya!  I don’t know why that $30 million makes so much difference but it does!

wow, Jackpot up again...AGAIN ???...Now I have to redo my  list 

l can think, of a lot of Good l could do with that money. Even a two or three way split would be just fine with me.

Put it in a spreadsheet and then you only have to update the cash value after taxes. 

I predict it will be $4.6 billion by drawing time .

Sorry about that BL, I should have been a bit more specific... New goodies to be purchased

"new goodies to be purchased"  Do not count your chickens until they are hatched. 

Lottery Dreaming is encouraged here. Go for the gusto!

I predict that you will offer another ridiculous opinion by drawing time.

Here we go cool billion!

Good luck to everyone!!!

It will be interesting to see if one person win it all and I would love to be that one!. I already bought two lines but I might as well spurge a little, when I stop by gas station and buy one each of MM, PB and NJ Pick 6. 

Three JP to dream about that can change our lives forever!

Hahaha, gotcha....on my list I upped my splurge/home/cars/boat amount from 11 to 15 million on this last bump to $970,000,000.00. 

I just time to go in my topic area and do another one for tomorrow

Hey vbrich, NJ Pick 6 nothing to sneeze at with enough to take care of your needs!

Yeah, maybe 3-6 months it would get that high...

Mea culpa, was responding to the prediction of 4.6 Billion this Friday.

WE only need a Million, but I do think of all the great Charities I could help and the people that REALLY Need Help, We could finally make a big difference in so many lives!

My list doesn't include that particular aspect. It's more like

Family:

1. Definitely give($1 Million+) to

2. Give some($100K) to

3. S.O.L

I may add a category between #2 & #3... call it, "legal gift amt."   I think it's around the $15-17K figure

ALWAYS ONE in the bunch..... at the very LEAST!

LOL 

I knew what you were talking about, can't say SOME got IT though!!!! HE HE HA HA

Oh My.

Jackpots are Up.

Markets are Down.

I think next week the record is broken.   Or  They wait to nobody hits this one and then slap it in everyone's face.

LOL, I have it on my to-do list to create some kind of "like" or "thanks" button on posts.  Your post reminded me I needed to do that when I wanted to click "like".

They all ran out to buy more Lottery Tickets!

Note all the high numbers on both this last Draw!

P.S Don't tell paymentplan-man!

Oh my. My where can I split my winnings into list is growing. 

Please stop making me laugh with your last sentence!

I see an Ohio trip in my future if this monstrosity is not won Friday night..an anonymous state.

I have a spot you can donate $10 Million to 

Yeah Jeffrey that last sentence from him almost made me spit my OJ out. "Don't tell Payment-plan-man"......... this guy where does he come up with it 

*looks at annuity payment amount* That is beginning to look awesome!!!!

Should have finished it off with "awesome a lot like Christmas"

True ppm true.

Hey I was just thinking about how mind blowing it would be if we saw in 24hrs that the jackpot was at like 1.3 Billion. That way during Friday evening and before the draw everyone and their mom will be out buying tickets.

That would be awesome!

Just food for thought.... What if it rolls?  Where does the JP estimate start at ?

Lmfao.  I smell something weird.

What's weird is that you ALWAYS think something is weird.

Stop y'all are TOO FUNNY!

Thanks really needed good laugh today.   My Heads hanging kinda Low :-((

South Dakota lets bring it home.

They use a lowball estimate of sales between now and the next drawing. It's misleading because the jackpot is based on actual sales, but to their credit, it does say "estimated jackpot". They have to lowball it because if sales are less than estimated, they would have to lower the jackpot amount between now and the drawing (has that ever happened?)

More importantly, and this is probably done intentionally, by lowballing the estimate and then revising the estimate upwards every single day, it gets people into even more of a frenzy.

You know what I thought the same thing and even said this in another post yesterday when we first saw it increase to 900 Million (28hrs ago) but I was corrected through this wonderful explanation. 

You don't seem to understand how jackpot estimates are made.  They are projections, not based on actual sales.  So when the sales for the new jackpot start they can quickly determine if sales volumes are following the expected levels, or if sales are higher or lower than expected.  So (for example) when 8 hours pass and sales are occurring at a much higher rate than what was used to create the initial projection, they plot a new calculation for the estimated jackpot — again using a projection.  So they did not necessarily sell $100 million in tickets in a few hours.  That's just not how it works.

If you really don't believe me, maybe you can write to your state lottery and ask them if that's how it works.  Nothing wrong with being skeptical (I am not offended by your skepticism), but when you personally don't know how it works, maybe it would be better not to insist with certainty that you know better than everyone else.

Looks like it is a dangling Carrot !!!

Making the Hare chase it and we are mad folks !!!!!

Let the hatching begin!  :)

No it won't.  How do you get 4.6 bill

I agree with you.  Misleading definitely.

Someone is getting this fixed.

  Excellent point and the way it keeps climbing it wouldn't surprise me one bit. 

Feel for the clerks in places where you can't play on-line or no lottery machine.  Maybe tonight the media will show the Primm lotto store with a huge line.  FB here I come to look to see if there's live streaming!

Well, that's not true.  If you check past history, they have occasionally over-estimated the jackpot, which is something they desperately try not to do.  When they over-estimate the jackpot they get accused of doing it in order to drive up sales.

So their approach is to be conservative in their estimates to avoid this.  And you say it's because they want to drive up sales??  That's ludicrous.

Here's an example of a big over-estimation:

• May 17, 2013: $600 MILLION: Biggest Powerball jackpot ever
• May 19, 2013: Record Powerball jackpot won by 1 ticket ($590.5 million)

An over-estimation of about $10 million.  So why did the lottery do that?  Because they were trying to drive up sales?  Or were they trying to lower sales by doing it?

The whole concept is silly if you understand how lotteries operate.  They simply try to get it right, without doing anything like over-estimating that would cause people to say they are trying to do false advertising.

About an hour ago somebody @ Primm Lotto store said the line was 1.5 hours long to get lottery tickets--well that was a customer, not the store itself. 

Let's go Mega Millions, this Curmudgeon needs his Jackpot!

Christmas in October Baby! 

Wow!  When we are in Las Vegas we usually head over to AZ for tickets but I know a lot of Las Vegans head to California because no state tax.  At some point I wonder if the Nevada state legislature will ignore the casino lobbies and get in on the lottery action.

Posters go from whining about playing against these odds not being worth it to developing conspiracy theories that defy logic. The MUSL has one trick up its proverbial sleeves. Wanna guess? Astronomical odds. Everything else evolves on its own. Predicting first time/occasional players behavior is a very hard thing to do. So the lottery adjusts as the rate of play changes drastically. It's this category of player that in large part drives up the JP to these levels and at this rapid pace.

 The voice of reason!  THANK YOU!

Since the first time I saw you post about the Curmudgeon your posts are now read by Ed Asner in my head.

Good luck!

Does the lottery office give out loans , etcccc .....What is the procedure to receive your money ? 

Somebody on here knows the procedure with the lottery . 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am 100% ready to win the Mega Millions $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ 

When , I win , I'm going to give Mr Butler a visit ( aka winner 2012 )

If you are referring to major JP winners, I know TN does this. Winners would get a few million to scrape by until all the money comes in should you make a claim before that 2 week period. I suspect that other states do likewise.

 As of May 2018.............You can give money to family $15,000 

 I was just told this Today !!

Thank you for your information ...........Have a good day !

Makes me wonder why anyone that doesn't like lotteries or think they're shady would sign up on a website dedicated to lotteries and post stuff.

It is even better than that.

You have two exclusions you can use to make gifts from.  One is the yearly gift exclusion and you can give as many individuals you want $15,000 and not have to pay gift tax.

The second one is called your lifetime exclusion.  You can either use it to make gifts and avoid gift tax or your estate can use it to offset estate taxes.  That amount is a whopping $11,180,000 total this year.  So you could give up to that amount and not have to pay gift tax.

And if you’re married both you and your spouse have the same amount of exclusion so you could potentially give away over $22 million without incurring gift tax.

You know how long it took me to get my ticket ? ............20 seconds ...............

No lines at all ........Just me :)   

@lottolucy .....

Thanks for that information ...........One other question , can a lawyer turn in the ticket,  instead of the winner ? 

In my opinion , I feel THE STATES THAT DOESN'T HAVE ANONYMOUS , They Should be anonymous too !!! 

Thank you !!!

It depends on the state.  If you mean can you form a trust and the lawyer represent you to the lottery without revealing your name you can in many states.  In some states that wouldn’t work.  In Virginia, for example, a living person has to claim the prize and you couldn’t claim it with your attorney fronting for you.

I agree with being to claim anonymously.  In today’s world it is just safer.

Okay, I didn't know that it has happened before (though 10 million out of hundreds of millions is like a drop in the bucket).

Thanks for the info!

Where I get my tix it doesn't matter what the jackpot is I'm usually in and out in a minute or two.

MM and PB are the two lotteries that I detest. No one should ever play them. Force them to go out of business and revert to a normal lottery where you have a far better chance of winning $1 million. Instead of just one winner in the entire country with $500 million, there could be five hundred millionaires! But that doesn't make the news, so we have this nonsense going on.

Another thing I detest about MM and PB is that they lie about the jackpot. It is not $900 million. It's about 55 to 60 percent of that. But they aren't the only ones who do that. The slot machine Megabucks (currently $11 million) is a 25 year annuity. I think Wheel of Fortune does the same thing. Unlike the lottery, though, with those two slot machines (like any slot machine), most of the prizes are not the jackpot. I played Wheel of Fortune one time and won $100. I played Megabucks one time and won $15. So I'm stopping while I'm ahead LOL.

There's nothing wrong with playing reasonable lottery games. MM and PB are, by definition, unreasonable. Spending a ton of money on lottery tickets for any games is also unreasonable. It can be cheap entertainment, but the state depends on people spending way too much money on the lottery, and for that they should be ashamed of themselves. The state is just as addicted to the lottery as a homeless person who spends all of his money on lottery tickets. It's sad.

I played 2 $2 tickets and won $60.  I stopped.

That's the way to play it!

Maybe one day the MUSL will offer 2nd tier prizes that allow lottery players to vie for million dollar prizes with better odds.

They tried that a few years ago with the Monopoly Millionaires Club lottery.

It failed miserably. People just don't get worked up over a million dollars.

I've said this before, it bears repeating. My state lotto game has odds of 1 in 25,827,165. Second prize for MM and PB are less than half of that. Yeah, the lotto jackpot is more than 1 million, right now $8,270,000, but it's a bugger with those odds.

But wait, we want better odds to hit a million???

We have scratch tix that pay a million, and the odds on those are as low as 1 in 472,000 (Stacks of Cash game). The catch is a ticket will set you back $20.

With lotteries, you can pay a buck or 2 for a shot at millions at longggggg odds, or $20-$50 for a shot at a million or a few million at much better odds, with the catch that there a limited number of winning tickets out there.

I have played a handful of $20 tickets but I much rather play a buck or 2 and hope for the best.

To each his own.

I believe you are taxed based on where you live, not where you buy the ticket.

No Buy.... If you purchase a ticket while vacationing, say up in Maine, you will pay their state income tax up there before you collect.

Purchase state controls.  Then you will receive a credit for your home state tax. If your home state tax rate  higher, then you will owe the difference.

And this is why I buy my tickets on DC, lol

That's a good idea.  I started using an Excel spreadsheet when Powerball hit that $1.586 billion in Jan 2016.  I just type in the jackpot amount and the percentage used to calculate the cash value and all the cells/squares do the calculations all on their own.  It gives me an idea on how much I would give out to my friends/family members.  I've been using it for the past few draws.

You just need to take the train into MD every couple of months and then there would be no question of anonymity at all!  LOL, sad but that is what I miss about Maryland the most.

I don't know what it would start as, but if it rolls, it will definitely end higher than Jan16's jackpot.

Yep! If (when) this jackpot estimate exceeds a billion, and then if nobody hits it... Oh man, then the frenzy will ensue! I'd say it would hit $2B before next Tuesday night! I simply cannot imagine that it won't be struck tomorrow night. Yet, stranger things have happened!

I know but no way with my schedule. What metro stop in MD has a place very nearby to buy lottery tickets? It would have to be on the blue line ideally too. It would take 2 hours on a weekend.

Unfortunately I am not familiar with any of the blue line stops in Maryland.  I know if you changed trains and took the red line to Bethesda there is a convenience store pretty close to the station on Wisconsin.  If you went to Silver Spring there are a ton of places within a block or two of the station including a 7-11 right across from the station on Georgia.  There is also a little convenience store in the NOAA building pretty much right after you exit the station —but that might only be open M-F.  It doesn’t seem like any of these will be practical for you.

I know you have access to good legal representation but the attorney who handled the DC winner in 2009 was named David Wilmot. He might be able to offer your team great insight.

The last time l saw a line out here, was for " Infinity War." 

What percent of combinations will be covered for tomorrow's MM drawing?  60%?

LOL! That is a question for KY Floyd!

What are the estimated sales? I can't find it. Thanks.

I had asked a question a while ago and everyone was confused by it. I wanted to know if a quick-pick ticket was supposed to be random, why did so many ticket get the same numbers.

Well, to answer your question, sort of..... Just because there are all these tickets being purchased, it doesn't mean that every possible combination of numbers is or will be sold.

Many of the tickets, even if they sell 302,757,350 tickets, although random, will contain the same numbers of other tickets sold and that means all possible combinations will not be sold.

Unlike a raffle, where each combination is sold only once, the number generator for quick-pick tickets can use the same combination over and over again

For example: when there are multiple first or second prize winners, each of those tickets received the same numbers as other "RANDOM" tickets.

Est. Jackpot       = $970,000,000

Cash value         = $548,000,000 

Tax Rate 39.6% = $217,008,000

Winners get        = $330,992,000

Odds =1 in / 302,575,350.  For each ticket sold, 34% rolls over to increase the JP.

Each ticket cost $2.00 so $0.68 goes toward the JP for every ticket sold.  So if the

cash value is $548,000,000 we can estimate total tickets sales are 805,882,353 at

$2.00 a pop for a grand cost of $1,611,644,706.00

We know that there are only 302,575,350 possible combinations of 5+1 in the entire

matrix so players have purchased enough lines to cover the entire matrix 2.6 times

most of which I assume are quick-picks.     

In the end the JP winners split 20.5% of total sales.  The State, Feds and lower prize

winners split the remaining 79.5%.  I went all in for Friday, I played 4 self picks. 

RL

Todd,

NJ 6 waiting for you Monday, 22 OCT 18 since no one had a winning ticket!!

It looks to be near-certain that the jackpot will jump above $1 billion today.  The Georgia Lottery will be holding a press conference late this morning at a Mega Millions billboard with "a surprise that is guaranteed to thrill".

RL... I believe that the new fed tax rate is at 37%...............After tonight,I will let you know 

And yet I still haven't gotten around to buying my tickets yet, lol! That oughta bump it up over the top!

P.S.

I have ran many test using PRNG's against different lottery game drawings.  It's not not uncommon for

a PRNG to generate 5X the lines in a matrix before it hits the exact set.  This is why I don't play QP's.

Each time you buy a QP you are using two random processes, first the one that generates the QP and

then the actual game drawing method. 

Imagine two drunken cowboys staggering around shooting into the air.  What's the odds that bullets fired

into the air would collide with each other.  While I might not be able to predict the numbers, I can watch

one cowboy shoot and then try to estimate the direction I need to fire in.     

RL

hhmmmm.  I wonder what that could mean.

I don't play quick picks at all.  I simply look at one of the lottery pyramids I do and I know everyone else has a different way of their strategy.  Depending on the numbers I stick with what is in there.  The numbers could be there.  Who knows.

You made a couple of huge mistakes in your calculations. I will give you a chance to find them.

What time is the Georgia  press conference Todd?  $1.2B?

IDK and definitely not Todd.

The last three days it seems like they upped the ante during Todd's lunch hour.

Also noticed it was on a few states FB page long before the official website was updated.

I did not add state taxes into the figures because each state is different and some don't have a state tax.

A ticket cost $2.00 and 34%, "rounded" equals $0.68.  Each ticket purchased adds $0.68 to the jackpot. 

548,000,000.00 / .68 = 805,882,353.  I may have made a mistake by multiplying it by 2 for the total sales

as I already based it on a $2.00 play.  Also some people play the extra buck which would bring the total ticket

to jackpot addition to $1.02 for those plays.  .34*$3.00=$1.02.  This is just an estimate because the JP is

also estimated. JP winners share would be around 40% of total sales.

RL

One billion now...close to the noon hour like the past three days of upping the jackpot!

"What are the estimated sales?"

You can figure the estimated sales from the estimated jackpot. As a rough measure sales are equal to the increase in the advertised annuity. For a more precise estimate you can check past sales on lottoreport,com and compare that to the increase. The $119 million increase from 548 to 667 had sales of about 105 million tickets, so each $1 million of increase equates to  about 882,000 tickets (ignoring minor differences in annuity/cash ratio). That means for a jackpot of an even billion sales should be about 294 million tickets (there's a thread about that and chances of a winner in the jackpot games forum). At this point the estimate should be fairly close, but the final total will  be a bit more unless they've screwed up. For the sake of simplicity let's figure sales will be 302.6 million, so that sales are equal to the number of combinations.

"even if they sell 302,757,350 tickets, although random"

Repeats are a normal function of random selection. You can see it on a smaller scale by rolling a die or choosing cards from a (reshuffled) deck. Despite repeats being normal a perfectly random selection maximizes the number of combinations in play. Any kind of non-random selection other than deliberately  preventing repeats will increase the number of repeats and reduce the total number of combinations that have been sold. Birthday numbers, patterns, etc are all examples.

When the number of chances is equal to the number of possible outcomes the probable result is that 63.21% of the possible results will have been covered. In that case a single winner and a rollover will have the same chance, at 36.79%. The chance of 2, 3, or 4 winners would be 18.39%, 6.13%, and 1.53%. Of course the winning numbers will determine the actual outcome.

Thanks KYFloyd!  So, about a 37% chance it rolls to $1.6B or higher next TUE?

l take it back, pulled into that gas station in Milpitas off Dixon landing road. It's the spot that sold the winning jp ticket to the guy who showed up in at the lottery office in a " Jedi T shirt" & covered his head with the oversized check, yeah him. There was a line of probably 15 people waiting their turn, folks who are hoping for lightning to strike twice.Picked up 2 tickets here & took off. Could hear the lady behind me say, that she was picking up tickets for the office pool.

KY

I read on a MM website that .34001 of ticket sales are rolled over to the JP.  $2.00*.34001 = $0.68

So for every 1 million increase in the cash value, ticket sales are 1,000,000 / .68 = 1,470,588

RL

Good to know. Thanks. One of these days I will buy in MD.

That's a great theory, but when I've done it that way for PB it's always off by a bit. The TX lottery website posts a breakdown for PB, and the sales figures posted on lottoreport,com always match that, so I'm assuming their sales figures for MM are also pretty accurate. For tomorrow's PB drawing they show sales of $176.75 million. At 34% (it's 64.0131 cents of every ticket) that would add just over $60 million to the cash value, but the increase in the cash value is reported as $69.6 million. That's a difference of almost 16%, so something is obviously wrong. It could be because the advertised amounts aren't always the same as what's shown on the worksheet. The PB worksheet is showing an actual jackpot of just over 474 million, and the actual.advertisd amounts for the previous drawing may add more of a discrepancy. It may be off by a little bit, but taking the figures from lottoreport is quick and easy.

You can find the current breakdown for PB here: https://www.txlottery.org/export/sites/lottery/Documents/jackpotestimates/pb20181020.pdf

FWIW, the reported sales estimate for tomorrow's PB drawing is $176.75 million, which is 88.375 million tickets. My spreadsheet calculates probability for even millions, and for 88 million PB tickets 26.00% of combinations should be sold. The PB worksheet says it's 26.1% coverage for 88.375 million tickets, so we agree very closely using the sales figures from Lottoreport.

After the amount of total revenues from ticket sales is known and multiplied by $.68, they get the real cash value. Jackpot estimates before that is an educated guess based on future ticket sales. It would be much easier if the advertised jackpot was simply twice as much as the cash value.

Stack

The article I read led me to believe that the .34001 was a fixed rate.  I don't know anything

about how lotteries are ran at the nuts and bolts level. 

What I would like to know is where the $40 million "reset / start-up" comes from.

RL

The prize structure is fixed until they make changes to the game. The $40 million starting jackpot comes from the probability that nobody will win until it rolls a few times and they've collected enough from players to fully fund the jackpot.

On the rare occasions that somebody wins at 40, 50, or 60 million they absorb a bit of a loss, but they make up for it when they get a big jackpot and sales go up. The last 4 drawings have totaled about $960 million in sales, earning them about $480 million gross profit in just 2 weeks. That's about 25% more than the gross profit for all of the previous drawings in this run. And right now they're expecting about another $500 million in gross profits for sales on the current jackpot.

And depending on how many tickets they actually sell there's still about a 15 to 20% chance that they'll get to rakes in another half billion or more in gross profit.

I was agreeing with you because it's 34 cent for every dollar or 68 cents for every $2. I believe the reset/start-up cash value comes from a reserve fund.