Thats the trouble with pools...you have to share the jackpot.

"Divided 16 ways, it comes to roughly $287,000 apiece. It's a nice chunk of change, but certainly not enough to retire on."

I wouldn't complain.   Doesn't sound as if these happy winners are too upset about sharing either.

Congratulations to them.     

"Santonur Rashed has something equally important in mind. The native of Bangladesh has been sending money home to his wife. Now he plans to bring her over."

I bet he's singing God Bless America tonight.  This brings tears to my eyes.  What a nice story.

Here's one thing about playing in a pool and dividing the jackpot up that many ways; all family, friends, and neighbors are going to know is you won the lottery, not how many ways it was split. 

(I didn't include co-workers because in this case all the winners were co-workers- but it's probsably a good bet that the ones who go through their winings first will be putting the bite on those who don't blow it all)

But all in all, good for them! 

Its not that I'm not happy for the 16 winners,I am.But $287,000 is a long way from 4 1/2 million dollars,which is what one person would have received had he been the only winner.I know I would prefer winning 4 1/2 million dollars instead of $287,000.But thats just me...I'm greedy.

A person knows BEFOREHAND that they will end up splitting it with whoever is in the pool with them, so to them it doesn't matter. If they win, great, and if they don't, oh well. If someone asked me if I wanted to put in $1 towards a pool of tickets, I probably will. I'm not going to say, "Well if we have the winning ticket, that means I have to split it with you people, so I'm not going to". $287,000 is still better NOTHING. I'm sure you wouldn't complain if you won $287,000. I also bet you would feel sick to your stomach if someone asked you to join a pool and you didn't because you didn't want to split it with them, and then they won. That's enough to pay off a mortgage. Most people wish they could own their home outright.

I've been asked to join a pool on several occasions and I passed.Its not that I'm against winning,its that I'm against sharing.Its bad enough enough that I'm required to share with the state and federal government.I'm greedy and not ashamed to admit it.It doesn't make sense to me to share a jackpot with several other people when I could possibly have the jackpot to myself.On the other hand,if people want to join a pool and take a portion of the jackpot instead of the whole jacpot,who am I to say they're wrong?What works for some people doesn't always work for others.

I'd be willing to split.  The excitement is what it all about to me..  Congrats to the 16 and their families..  What a huge amount of fun money that would be.

I understand what you are writing, but one reason we see so many pools win is that the odds increase quite a bit when 16 or 20 people are buying tickets.  If you have enough of your own money (or don't mind blowing it) to buy that many tickets, then maybe a pool isn't for you.  I think it's great that all those people won and I agre with tntea it would be very exciting.

However, I also agree that I wouldn't want to split a jackpot 16 ways if I used my own numbers.  I've been playing my own numbers for several years and wouldn't want to share them in an office pool. After all, some of those people might be betting for the first time.  I also like to play some random numbers or quick picks.  However, I assume that people in a pool agree to only split the money from tickets played by the pool, not personal numbers a member bets on her own. 

If there is someone here who is a member of a pool and also plays his own numbers or buys extra quick picks, let me know if he feels this would be a conflict. 

We (my wife & I) buy one Megamillions in Illinois on Tuesday & one on Friday (quick picks).We also buy one Powerball ticket on Wednesday & one on Saturday (we've been playing the same numbers for years).My wife also buys one Hot Lotto for each drawing on Wednesday & Saturday (quick pick).It doesn't matter what size the jackpots are,we only buy one ticket per drawing.My wife sometimes kicks in to a pool at work when the jackpot reaches 100 million dollars,but there are only 5 people in the pool.They have an agreement that if someone hits with their own numbers,the others can't make a claim on it.(We'll see if they feel the same way if one of them hits.)We haven't hit anything big yet,but we keep hoping.My personal numbers have never come up together in the history of Powerball,all of the numbers have hit before,but never in this combination.My wife thinks we should change numbers but I'm sure if we do,these numbers will come up and then I would be pissed!