$540 MILLION: Mega Millions buying frenzy sparks another jackpot increase

Don't people go there on special occasions?

I pictured it as one of those movies with an Asian man where the words don't match the mouth movement!!! hahaha... takes so little to entertain me!!!

$14,330,769 is a nice after tax annuity but next year the top tier tax rate goes up (unless Congress extends the Bush tax cuts once again).

You will have no certainty from future Fed tax rate increase. If the top Federal rate goes to 70% (it's been higher in past years) then your payment dwindles down to $4,984,615 and that's assuming the Ohio state tax rate stays at 6%.

The cash value after tax in Ohio is $292,500,000 . If it earned a measly 2% in perhaps a Municipal tax free bond then you would net 5,850,000 each year without ever touching the principal.

While someone taking the annuity would be collecting their last payment 26 years from now, the person who opted for the cash would have already been paid over $152,100,000 tax free while still having the original $292,500,000 left in their account.

Not trying to persuade your mind but just wanted to give you a different perspective

u guys are crazy talking that trust fund stuff and saving money listen yu guys including myself prob wont make close to that in your life time so skip me its a half billion dollars n not one person said take care of their family or give some to charity, if i win my whole family eating... we all go cutt the cake like newlyweds

I used to teach in the inner city. Let me try and translate this. LOL

All of you are crazy for talking about trust funds and saving your money. I don't know what a trust fund is and I have never had any money to save. All of you, including myself, will probably never earn that kind of money in our life time. Well, I might because I plan on becoming the next Frank White. With the jackpot at a half a billion dollars, I can't believe none of you said you would take care of your family or help support a charity. If I win my whole family will have enough money to do whatever they want. After we share the money, I am going to have sex with my mother like it was our honeymoon and then I will marry my sister like a good southern boy should.

Insanity----

The Ohio annuity after-tax payment is $14,330,769 (26 payments)

I'm taking the annuity.

Early and later "Kung Fu" movies prior to and after Bruce lee classic Chinese fight  movies!      

DON'T shoot the messenger....

I Just read this on another website I frequent.....I personally think it's bunk but hey we are talking about $$$$$$ so I suppose anything is possible.  They have security to prevent this from happening right??

"THE LOTTERY IS RIGGED

You may have heard that you are more likely to be hit on the head by a meteorite than to win the lottery. This is certainly so. Assuming that the game is honest, the odds are roughly one in several hundred million. Even with these odds, lottery commissions are not satisfied. The lottery is rigged.

The giant multi-state and individual state lotteries are more fixed than pro wrestling. The jackpots go up and up, with no winners. People get lottery fever. Millions nationwide are willing to wait in a line just like the ones for bread in the former Soviet Union for the pipe dream of striking it rich. The rigging works like this: super computers keep track of each combination sold, and then the ping-pong balls are weighted to assure that a losing combination comes up. On rare occasions, all possible combinations are sold, and they must let someone win. Only then is the game honest.

Why? The lottery, which is a state-run version of the Mafia's numbers racket, is a great money grab scam, as long as it brings in more than it pays out. In the past, lotteries were abolished because they lost money.

The worst part of this is whom it hurts. The poor and desperate are the most common victims of lottery fever. Children go hungry and senior citizens go without their medication because of it. People prone to gambling addiction also blow huge sums.

We spoke with an employee at a state lottery agency. We can not reveal his name or even which state, as some of the same gangsters who ran the numbers racket now run the lottery, and they would kill him.

“Yes, I personally am involved in it. Lottery ping-pong balls have a small valve, like a basketball or soccer ball, only it’s very tiny, and nearly invisible. We use a hypodermic needle to inject heavier-than-air gasses such as radon into the balls we don’t want to come up. At first, we tried helium in the ones we did want to rise, but they jumped up so quickly that it was obvious. Lotteries are raking in much more than if the games were honest, and people don’t know they have literally no chance!”

“If you think about it logically, you certainly don’t play anyway. You are betting that you can predict which six of 45 or more balls are going to come out of the hopper. In some games, the order even matters! It’s a sucker’s bet, and that’s when it’s honest! Most drawings are rigged, making the odds zero in infinity! The lottery is not only a tax on people who don’t understand math; it is an unfair and unjust tax. Didn’t we have the American Revolution over taxes like that?”

You read it here first."

Even if this were true, it really would not change things. As long as you pick the correct rigged numbers you will still win so not really an issue. Seeing as the last chances to play end an hour before the drawing, they would have to have access to all the numbers from every store in every state and then have less than an hour to determine which numbers were not played and then rig the appropriate balls which would be a Herculean task in itself.

Sweetie - you don't have to identify yourself each time you post.  Your name is to the left of your post so we all know its you.

There was a guy on one of those Lottery Made Me Rich shows that said he did that so I am pretty sure it is possible. If I recall he won maybe close to $200 million also so it was either a Mega Millions or Powerball jackpot. The Mega Millions is not a state run lottery so I don't think they would have to adhere to the regulations of a particular state anyway.

Wonder why they keep changing the estimated value? The headquarter know right away any winning tickets in each prizes and the total amount of tickets purchased in every states. Yet the jackpot is "estimated" and change frequently. Not that I complain about the increase value, however why don't they get it right instead of keep guessing.