Lottery is a fraud.out of 390 million dollars how do u only give out 160 million after taxes?.at the very least the  winners should walk away with at least half of the advertised jackpot after taxes.i guess that i will never be a millionaire through the lottery system because i dont play the million dollar games.the statement about them cutting it in half because of the lump sum is not true..if you take the 20 year option you still will pay the same amount in taxes if not more.there are no 300 plus million dollar jackpots only the illusion of a jackpot that big so people will give the lottery more money.

"There were just two winning tickets sold in the 10-state game, lottery officials said."

I thought there was 12 states in the Mega Millions. 

If you don't play you don't have to guess about never winning, you know for sure.

They still have to pay taxes for the installments.

I take it that you also think that working a JOB is a fraud in that Uncle Sam does the exact same thing in taking 15 to 28 percent of your earnings...actually, the government takes even more than that from your weekly/biweekly/monthly paycheck...after the federal (usually always applicable unless military serving in hazard zone like Iraq/Afghanistan) and state (if applicable) tax, you are are hit with Social Security and Medicare.  Those self-employed individuals have to pay self-employment tax....so all in all, I would not mind at all JUST paying Uncle Sam 28 percent and IL 3 percent of any lottery winnings, especially if we are talking about MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.  Got my dollar and dreams riding on the $12 Million Mega Millions draw this Friday...just think if I win, I won't even register on the media's radar because I WILL HAVE ONLY WON $12 million!

I take it that you also think that working a JOB is a fraud in that Uncle Sam does the exact same thing in taking 15 to 28 percent of your earnings...actually, the government takes even more than that from your weekly/biweekly/monthly paycheck...after the federal (usually always applicable unless military serving in hazard zone like Iraq/Afghanistan) and state (if applicable) tax, you are are hit with Social Security and Medicare.  Those self-employed individuals have to pay self-employment tax....so all in all, I would not mind at all JUST paying Uncle Sam 28 percent and IL 3 percent of any lottery winnings, especially if we are talking about MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.  Got my dollar and dreams riding on the $12 Million Mega Millions draw this Friday...just think if I win, I won't even register on the media's radar because I WILL HAVE ONLY WON $12 million!

To better understand the "How" valuation, you might want to look here http://www.usamega.com/mega-millions-jackpot.htm at the Jack pot analysis.

Oh, and keep in mind, the $160 Million is BEFORE taxes, NOT after. That is the current CASH value. It is only worth $390 million if you are willing to have it locked up for 20 years and accept annual installments instead.

To understand how that works, you might want to look up info on Annuities (btw...never ever have an Annuity as an investment vehicle unless you actually want your money locked up for such an incredible long period of time. Annuities are perhaps the most expensive investment vehicle available).

It depends on if the winner feels it is better to invest the money themselves from the present value or let the Lottery do that and pay it out over time. With a jackpot that size I'd see no problem with annuity. Every year there'd be a payment that itself would equal a lottery jackpot.

In my program if I backtest with Quick Picks vs. my system, my system will always beat it (but needs to get a decent ratio to beat the 50% take out)..  they put the drawing on Times Square which would throw off many systems and in that case you were just as good with QP and anyway MOST people who play the big drawings play QP because they're in a hurry or not Regular players like us so they aren't using systems... some stores will FORCE YOU to get QP ONLY when there is a long line. With so many QP tickets out there that's why it favors QP. It's almost like saying "the mega ball will be between 02 and 47" - you'd be right most of the time. On smaller jackpots there are often winners who picked numbers.

The reason they use the untaxed annuity value is because bigger jackpots = more fever, the very thing I keep hearing is missing lately. Well now that the ballon is busted, the upside for the non-winners is they can get on with their normal lives now and go back to hoping for the $125 box win on the Pick 4 to treat the family to dinner out with. The sad thing is it almost but not quite got to 400.

I don't know about any of you, but I'd be perfectly happy with $160 million.

working a job is not a fraud.only the tax system that we are a part of is.all i am saying is that if the jackpot was not advertised as 390 million then there revenue would not have been anywhere near  what it was this go round.it must have been pretty high for the jackpot to jump up 60 million in only 3 or 4 days.