Just went to get my tickets at my favorite lil country store and saw the electronic sign showing $900 Million...

WOW that was fast

I think it will top $1,000,000,000.00 before the drawing! 

Todd, great work, you may have to update it again.

You guys in New Jersey have a nice lottery to hit tomorrow night.

I Don't 

Still waiting to here where the NJ million dollar ticket was sold.  Here it was Madisonville, KY.

Don’t think like that... pick your own numbers, note, they were all odd, that’s half you don’t have to worry about...

time to scoop up powerball

Why not?  It was raised $32,000,000.00 in several hours.  I don't think a raise of $100,000,000.00 is out of the question by Friday.

One Ticket!

One Winner!

One Curmudgeon!

Let's go Mega Millions!

Christmas in October!

This raise wasn't due to people buying more tickets since the last drawing, its because the 868,000,0000 was under estimated. Im sure it will increase some from ticket sales but not 100M. Unless the amount of 900M was also underestimated.

Where do you get your data from?  Do you work for MUSL?  Just wondering.  Still sticking to my story about $1 billion for Friday.

"Where do I get the data".

  You cant play mega millions after 10:45 eastern time the day of the drawing time until Wednesday when the terminals go back online. So lets just say that the machines don come back online until 9am on Wednesday. That means that if you are playing on the east coast that means it went up 30 something million in like 4 hours instead of 12. That's just not likely especially if you look at the total amount spent on the jackpot over the 4 days from last Friday-Tuesday. There are sites you can visit like lotto report which will show you how much each state is spending on tickets as well as how much was spent overall from one jackpot to the other.

14. How late can I purchase a MEGA MILLIONS ticket on a draw night? On draw nights, you will be able to purchase MEGA MILLIONS tickets until game sales close at 10:00 p.m. ET, as adequate time is required to ensure that the draw data has been securely received from all 46 member lotteries before the MEGA MILLIONS drawing is held at 11:00 p.m. ET in Atlanta, GA. 

There will be a 5-minute sales break between 10:00 p.m. and 10:05 p.m. ET on the night of the MEGA MILLIONS drawings, and sales after 10:05 p.m. ET will be for the next draw.

Todd Vader is wise!

I posted a scenario of a way possibly any members can hit this thing.  However,  I have other things I am doing.  I think MM people are doing this on purpose.  There will be a winning ticket Fri.

Sorry I forgot to say that this was for my state I would imagine that not all states are different. Or who knows maybe just different stores. I buy from the same 7 eleven and they told me that it goes offline after 1045 pm and I have to come play tomorrow starting at 9 am. But still non of that matters there's not going to be many tickets being bought after the drawing and Id be willing to bet that even if you could buy tickets at any time it wouldnt be enough to cause the jackpot to grow from 868-900 so quickly. Nope the only reason it was 868 was because the preliminary estimate was much lower than it should have been not because people went on a after draw and through the night spending spree especially since again if you look at how much people are spending on tickets its been very low.

While you are correct this applies to Atlanta Georgia whereas what I wrote applied to Alexandria VA...... source I walked in after midnight to get a ticket and was told machines turn off at 1045 and come back online at 9am.

https://www.ajc.com/news/local/mega-millions-jackpot-rolls-over-868m-winner-georgia/XhFIOhZIAJGUqKU0Q6YCgJ/

In a matter of hours Wednesday, the Mega Millions jackpot jumped from $868 million to a record $900 million.

Georgia Lottery officials said the $32 million bump was due to “brisk sales” after the jackpot rolled over from Tuesday night’s $667 million drawing.

No, lottery machines across the state of Virginia do not turn off the ability to sell tickets between 10:45 pm and 9:00 am.  It's not a great idea to rely upon a single clerk at one retailer, who apparently confused their store's hours of operation with the entire state's lottery machine policies.

Boy is this MM jackpot movie good

Ok lets look at it like this

Fridays jackpot there was a total of $116 Million spent towards that draw

Last night was a total of 210 Million spent which means that within 24(4) hrs or 96 hrs people spent 94 million or a little less than 1 million every hr although there's peak times to buy tickets (primary after working hrs, during lunch, or right before the draws) Its safe to assume that the hrs that most people are sleeping there are very little tickets sales.

Sot then lets assume that people buy twice as many tickets which hasnt been happening so far but lets just say thats the case. This means that people will spend 192 Million but lets just round it to 200 million. This would mean that in 3 days we can expect the whole population to spend roughly 200 MIllion or rounded up to 3 million per hr. Which means that after 12 hrs people would have to have spent that 3 million per hr. Which is hard to believe since this is the time where people would have been spending the least amount of money on tickets. It comes down to a matter of opinion I guess. I dont believe people will be spending that much on tickets but if you choose to believe so then so be it. BUt if you can agree with me on the fact that its doubtful that people were still buying tickets at 1am like they would at say 11am then the only logical reason for the bump is that the 868 first estimate was simply do to being highly underestimated instead of a buying spree at 1am in the morning.

While I would be happy with the starting jackpot, I really want this for my little work pool. There are 8 of us in the pool, and 2 of them have/had breast cancer (one is stage 4) the other is in remission and we just learned that another person has cancer that has spread and is inoperable, stage 4. The med bills are staggering, even with insurance.

yeah that's a perfect pool amount

You are right  about the lottery letting this pot grow its money in there pockets and they doing it on purpose. Am glad i only play two tickets last night am not trying to get into this hype and spend alot of money ...

Yeah 2 tickets is my absolute max. Saw someone on Reddit spend like 60 bucks (posted the tickets) and got nada. I felt so bad.

its crazy saw this guy at the Gas station he spent 200.00 on tickets i can only imagine waking up the next day and knowing you didn't win ...  when the jackpot gets this high people just get so excited and spend every little bit of there cash ... so sad am only buying 2 tickets for Friday

What is they purposely do something tomorrow night?  break the record Tuesday! anybody ever think about!

 Here for you don't even know what you would do with the morning then I honestly can't believe what I'm reading off a some people some you sound so desperate

I got my ticket with megaplier option. If it rolls to a billion then oh my word what could a single winner do????

Yeah what I typically do is go in and get 1 quick pick first. If i get something stupid like 4-17-27-37-70 Ill get another but if the numbers are somewhat spread im cool with that. For instance I bought a ticket in MD on monday with 09-22-39-43-67(20) I was pk with those numbers. Didnt win crap but at least to my human computer the combination didn't look impossible. Its the worst thing ever when you go in wanting to get 1 quickpick and get like a ticket with all 60s. Once my ticket had 4 repeat numbers from the last draw lol.

For $50 M a pop you and your family could spend a week and a half at the International Space Station. 

That's what i do .. get a quick pick and look how the numbers are spread out .. for example  the ticket i bought yesterday had all high numbers which didn't make sense to me.. so i chose my own numbers from low to high and two numbers came 3 and 49 ... i will just keep on doing that ..

I always buy one ticket. For Friday, I just might splurge a bit and buy 2 for a total outlay of $4. When I win, I will say, "And this is how you turn $4 into $500M overnight! I also want to thank the Lottery Post community for keeping up the faith that one of us would win the big one! Now it is time for me to go and continue my work and take care of my immediate family.  Anyone seeking a business or personal loan should visit their local bank as I am not in that business. Those seeking a handout might want to go to an intersection or start up a GoFundMe campaign. Thank you and have a good day."  Does anybody think that sounds rude? I don't care as I know I never have sought a handout and won't seek to give away money like that. I also cannot lend money to people as doing so can result in me losing my professional license and getting slapped with huge fines by the SEC.

Three for me. I always had good luck whenever I play three lines. I don't play frequently but 3 hits sweet spot when ever I do play.

Yeah another similar idea is to Google search random number generator and choose one of those numbers generated for the particular draw game. It works just the same because its random and you have the power over which set you spend money on. I've only bought draw tickets from a terminal like 4-5 times but on Friday when I did it I kept pressing cancel because I got like 15 crazy combinations in a row. I kept getting stuff like 37,27,57 time and time again or like 2,4,6.

Indeed, one of the actors apparently didn't practice his/her script well enough though. 

Your state is actually trying to pass a law for anonymity for wins 250k and better. So who knows this could come true beginning in early 2019 which means if you win and wait you could be in luck. Although even if it passes in time I would be willing to bet they try to tell you since the win happened before the law was made you would still be SOL

I knew somewhere in your hippocampal, there was a funny bone.

* Huzzah on the updates!

oh cool thanks will check it out . i have also noticed there a pattern that these numbers repeat from time to time ... meaning there are certain numbers that are always a pair you look it up from the previous draws and that helps a lot ...

I try not to look for patterns since that goes against the realms of being random. As long as the tickets i get are not some funky combination its good enough for me.

So you think they made an estimate, announced the next jackpot, and then went back to look at the estimate and noticed that they forgot to carry the 2 or something? You know that this is only the second time in the history of the world that they've had to make a sales estimate after nobody wins a jackpot that was already over $600 million, right?

That means they've got almost zero data about how much bigger sales will be as a result of the huge jackpot. The best they can do with the first estimate is rough guess, and they want to be very sure they low ball it. That doesn't mean they  have to wait until sales are finished to get useful and reliable data.

Everyone as an individual may vary their purchases from one drawing to the next, but as a whole we're very predictable.  As soon as they have a couple of hours worth of sales data they'll have a much better idea of what total sales will be. Sales tend to be concentrated toward the end of the sales period, but the percentage of sales that happen in the first few hours are similar from one drawing to the next. If the first 5 hours of sales for the previous Friday's drawing had $1 million in sales and the first 5 hours of sales for this Friday's drawing had $3.5 million in sales it's a very safe bet that the jackpot increase will be at least 3.5 times as much. The only thing that keeps them from a nearly perfect estimate after a few hours of sales is that they aren't sure about the last minute rush because of people who decide they don't want to miss out on what may be their last chance at the jackpot before somebody wins it.

As far as reaching a billion by the time it's over I'm not sure. During PB's record run the jackpot increased by about $420 million when nobody won the $528 million jackpot. Based on that it seems reasonable that a rollover from 667 might increase by at least 400, for a total of 1.07 billion. OTOH there are other factors that could reduce the size of the increase. We know that jackpot fatigue has reduced sales for any given jackpot, and MM sales tend to be lower than PB sales. Then there's the fairly high PB jackpot that's also up for grabs right now. When PB increased by 420 MM was less than 200. I think that all adds up to a pretty good chance that we'll see a  billion by Friday night, but I wouldn't be surprised if it finishes around 950.

Yes I believe they had a estimate and then once they got a final number the estimate changed. Thats how it works for every drawing. Right after the drawing they say hey based off of how sales have been progressing we think the estimate will be 500 million but it actually comes out that its 517 later on. Thats more believable then thinking that there were enough ticket sales to increase the pot by 32 after 12 hrs. Now if they released this 32 Million jump at say 10pm tonight I would believe it no question asks because that's a whole day to buy tickets when everyday joes would actually buy them . But spending that much while people are sleeping or spending hrs trying to get to work is not believable to me. Which IM entitled to believe that way. If people really spent enough to raise the pot by 32 million in 12 hrs when things aren't busy that means we should see another nice fat raise tonight or a even fatter raise Thursday at noon. So I guess we will have to wait then and see.

Since I am sick and having a day off today, let's have fun...

For my thinking and it's opposite...

If I can't collect winning anonymously, this is too large sums of money to hide from everybody and keep it for myself, I will have to share this.  I absolutely trust my brothers so we are going to split equal amounts and that alone will take care of their families and mine, we talked about this and agreed upon this when topic of jackpot win comes up at dinner and this usually happens when JP get this large. And of course our parents will continue to be well taken care of. 

Even I quit my job and my brothers shut down their companies, we all need to do something. My suggestion would be put away 25%($15MM or better) of winning for our own and put 25% to be used to earning funds for insurance and college funds for families that participate at small fees (like $10/mo per family).  And large portion of rest will be used to run our own Shark Tank type of investment firm, from reading things everyone will come after the portion of "their share" for what ever the reason.  I am all for family member that is in illness.  But if relatives and friends come and ask to invest money on their plans, ideas and gimmick, they will have to provide their business plans that can pay us back and can be started with under $500k. If business isn't ideal and gets approved by all and/or don't like our suggestion and person don't have track record of being hard worker. They will probably get gift like under $15k/yr from each of us for like 3 years.  I have a feeling our "Shark Tank" will not survive but if we had provided 10 out of 20 families and friends with steady income and other failed 10 with well paying jobs at the succeeded one.  Gun and knife pointing from them may not be a big issue in our lives...

Now... for that random people or friend's uncle's sister's boyfriends or voodoo priests that visit/call/send letters threaten us with our lives and curse our family... we will have to see...

I hope it works out that way, Dpoly1

should be a most curious evening indeed

Well I tried whatever number popped into my head I filled out the playslip with 6 numbers for powerball tonight and mega millions on Friday night for $4 so good luck to me.  Wanted to be different!-weshar75

Thanks!

Good luck to you too!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

There was a small line where I play the lottery and there was a lottery technician watching the machine!

That store is a top 25 lottery retailer in PA and we have a very small population, about 4,211!

dpoly1:  Just answered my own question about the Pennsylvania lottery and see you can play on line.

Do you ever do that?

State by state this is the wave of the future, especially IMHO for Millenials.

I got there early for my paper and played before I went for my PT.

I almost died last year and I need to keep up my strength.

I indicated earlier that this is wrong, but apparently you have not deemed it important to acknowledge or reply.  So I'm restating that you're wrong about this, just in case someone missed it earlier.

Ill restate what I said as well and say that I will will wait and see if we see more bumps. If you provided proof that is undeniable then sure I would be willing to believe it. But as it stands I don't see any reason to believe that during the hrs of 11pm-11am there were just so many sells that there was a $32 million bump from what was previously estimated. 

According to Kelly Cripe, director of media relations for the Texas Lottery Commission, precisely “34.0066 percent of each sales dollar is contributed to the jackpot.” 

So with some math that means that of the 32 million bump this was only 34% of how much people spent in 12 hrs. That means people spent almost 100 million in 12 hrs where as we as a country only spent $210,196,810 during the (4) day break from playing on Friday till last nights draw. Plus for this to happen during the hrs when the lottery is played the LEAST. I understand everything you are saying but Im saying I don't believe it and nothing will change my opinion on the matter. Without concrete proof. After all the lottery is about using whatever means necessary to grab players attention and increase sells. 

Uh dude, you do realize you are responding to the owner of this site, who wrote the article and is very well versed on all things lottery. 

Im not being disrespectful to anyone it simply started out as me saying I didn't agree with what someone said. I could agree with proof very happily in fact.

Im a person that like to look at the math. And to me the math points to only one logical conclusion. The only way I would deviate from said conclusion is with proof that what Im saying Cannot be the case. Todd sorry if you feel like im being rude or anything it was not my intent I have nothing but love for all the posts you do man.

.

OK Everybody, 
Let's try and make sure that the Lotto jp for MM exceeds the 1 Billy mark.
Please, I know you can do it. I just know it.   1 Billy by Friday's draw? At least!

EVERYBODY, BUY BUY BUY

Have people at the office who poo-poo the lottery?

Approach them kindly, and insist   BUY! BUY! BUY!

Tell everyone, see a stray dog or cat in the street, while you walk?  TELL THEM BUY BUY BUY . . .

The little old lady, who almost cut you off, in traffic?  Announce to them BUY BUY BUY! ! !

"You, on the motorcycle . . . "

We should all have thick black magic marker boards handy, while we drive around, in our commutes and flash them whenever possible. 

BUY YOUR LOTTO TICKET TODAY: 

GRAND PRIZE EXPECTED

TO EXCEED . . . . . .

Come to think of it, doing this all the time, may be what we need.

Hide lol

I like your plan and shark tank.

Lol I like this. How many tickets do you plan to purchase Groppo?

.

Paymentplan-man,

Believe me, I'm as excited as you or anyone, anywhere.
I'm thinking of buying more tomorrow, but I already blow
more than I should, every week.

My girlfriend has never bought a ticket before so when she does that's when I know the jackpot amount has really hit the fan. Im happy that I've been able to save some money this long. Haven't bought over 2 lines yet which for me is impressive. When I first started playing I was dropping like 20 bucks any time it reached 400Million but now I can hold off and just get 1-2 tickets at 500 or more. I rarely buy one below 400Million. At least not since the changes for MM took place.

I could have bought MM tickets Online at 5:00 AM this morning in KY and at 6:00 AM the last time I bought tickets in Ohio. That gives plenty of time for people across the country to buy enough tickets to raise the estimate. And because it's an estimate, it might be based on past buying frenzies or a simple very conservative under estimate the first time. 

“34.0066 percent of each sales dollar is contributed to the jackpot.” 

And to be more precise "contributed to the cash value jackpot". I don't even want to know how they figure the before taxes annuity value. 

Do ya'll remember back when the Powerball was at $950M, and yet nobody hit the jackpot? It's pretty wild to think that it's still just a coin toss, even now, whether or not the numbers drawn will catch up to the odds.

Headline:::: This weeks'  Mega "Billion" Winner ...

(Wait for it,,,,,,,,)

AceKicka!!! 

That was the only time to my knowledge when they sold more tickets (440 million) than possible combinations. Combined with 635 million sold in the next jackpot, over 1 billion tickets were sold within seven days.

Just goes to show how difficult it would be to sell 100% of the combos.

Wow! I remember the morning after that $950M drawing. When I saw that it rolled (I think the new estimate was 1.3B) my jaw hit the floor. It didn't seem possible that nobody won it! Then everyone just lost all self control and the real frenzy ensued. Imagine if this drawing gets re-estimated up to a billion, and nobody wins it. It'd likely hit $2B by next Tuesday.

The estimate was 1.2B. I remember, it was the reason why i became interested in lotteries.

Was it $1.2B? At any rate, that's a mind boggling number!

Trying to decide if I want to play MM,,, lol

Good luck though

And good luck to you, too, MzDuffleBaglady (whether or not you decide to play ;) )

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.

Or study codes in gematria and how everything really works.  I see something weird where not the annuity which yes you're correct is determined by what you claim.   I don't quite get how it goes from $868 million to $900.  Did someone accidentally goof or did they purposely do that?

Going to play a one line I have been playing since 1998.  Three #’s came out together 2 weeks ago.  Now, all 5 white balls have hit within the last 4 draws.  Maybe they will finally be grouped together.

25. Mega Millions: $390 million, Mar. 6, 2007 - Georgia, New Jersey
If Powerball rolls, the last jackpot of the ancient days of lottery (pre-2010 crossover) will be off the list.

Yep, it was.

1. Powerball: $1.5864 billion, Jan. 13, 2016 

Not debating, but thought that was the jackpot they were talking about.

I'll tell ya one thing, the PB numbers were pretty lame (I didn't purchase any tickets, so I have no skin in the game)... Hey, that kind of rhymes. Anyway, I think we might have another PB rollover.

Hi, Stack47. That's the jackpot, but we were talking about the estimate when it first rolled over from 950, but before it was fully grown. Like, when this one went from 667 to 868.

Back in the day, almost every jackpot was paid as an annuity and the confusion started when players were offered the cash value. The estimated jackpot is the full value of a 30 year annuity that can be purchased with the current estimated cash value. Currently $513.4 million will get us a $900 million 30 year annuity.

The Ohio Classic Lotto game's jackpot is as simple as it gets; their 30 year annuity is twice as much as the cash value.

Instead of doing that, you can use this Lottery Post Quick Picks Generator

The last estimate the 1/9/2016 jackpot was $947.9 million, but I have no idea what the first estimate for the 1/13/2016 drawing was. This jackpot run has lots in common with that one and with no winner on Friday will probably set the all time record for both cash and annuity.

Holy Wow! PB rolled bigtime! look at that bump!

PB rolled to $430M. That puts Saturday's draw in the Top 25 Hall of Fame.

That was an astonishing jump, in light of today's jaded, jackpot fatigued, fair weather lottery players. Things are getting interesting!

Over 100 million is quite the Bump. With all the media attention between Mega Millions and Powerball is surely going to increase sells for the next couple of days. My prediction is Mega Millions Jackpot will increase between to 950 million to 1.1 billion before Friday's drawing. There is going to be a mad frenzy  going on with people ou buying tickets in bulk. Hopefully someone in the LP Family will win or at least a lottery pool. Never really know how it's going to turn out until it happens but I rather see a group than one individual. Let the madness begin!

I agree, s5thomps, I'm thinking MM will finally surpass a billion by Friday. May the Lord help us and keep us level-headed if it rolls after Friday! Just remember, it just takes 1 ticket to win!

"That was the only time to my knowledge when they sold more tickets (440 million) than possible combinations."

There were several other times that ticket sales exceeded the number of possible combinations before the PB record jackpot. The MM drawing for the 3/30/12 record jackpot had sales of almost $652 million. That was when tickets were just a buck and there were a lot less than 302 million combinations. The 12/17/13 MM drawing had sales of $336.5 million, also at $1 per ticket, for the $648 million jackpot. The  05/18/13 PB jackpot was $590 million and had sales of $464.5 million at $2 per ticket, but the odds were "only" about 1 in 175 million.

Before that, when the odds were a good bit lower and jackpots of 250+ were very unusual there were several that sold more tickets. I thought Jack Whitaker's win might have been the first time, but there were 2 drawings in July '98 with sales of $100 and $211 million. That's not a lot of tickets by today's standards, but the odds were about 1 in 80 million.

"The estimate was 1.2B."

The initial estimate was 1.3 billion. https://www.lotterypost.com/news/298098

"with no winner on Friday will probably set the all time record for both cash and annuity."

If it sets a cash record it will beat the annuity record by a significant margin. Based on the current cash/annuity ratio it will take an annuity value of 1.72 billion to set a new cash record. Certainly possible, but I think it's well shy of a sure thing.

"Over 100 million is quite the Bump."

The advertised value jumped by $85 million. That's a lot, but it looks like a good bit of that was actually an increase for Wednesday's jackpot. Lottoreport,com is reporting sales of  $111 million. At a bit over 30 cents per dollar that's enough to increase the cash value by more than $33 million, but the advertised annuity value of $345 was only $31 million more than the previous annuity of 314. A cash increase of $33 million is about $57 million for the annuity value, which would mean  the previous increase was about 314 to 71. That would mean we're really looking at increases of 57 and 59 million.

Yes, of course, I am excited to see what MM will end up at, but more exciting to me is the huge jump that PB made.  Now both j/p's are in the big ranges!

  Add the two together and dream of the possibilities. 

Music, a 2nd prize winner for the MM jackpot was revealed to be employed at a Safeway in SF. What followed was downright shameful.This afternoon's press made a big deal about visiting the store, and having a conversation with the store manager, who said that when she heard one of her co worker's had won 2nd prize, she was " running through the store hysterically "- we talking 2nd prize. Must have been a slow news day for camera crews to show up at a location & want to interview the winner of a 2nd prize jackpot. The whole thing was bizarre. Just one of the reasons, should I win, l will keep my mouth shut and avoid the press at all costs.

I think it's sad only if it looks like he couldn't afford it. He might do like me, I have a long term strategy, I play when jackpots rise above certain levels on many different lotteries, then I play more.  I also win many more smaller prizes when I play more lines, so the average spend is evened out. Also I only spend money I can afford to loose, and I dont drink, don't smoke... lots of money to put in lotteries instead.

noise-gate, Thanks for the update on a 2nd prize level winner. Is Safeway a national grocery store? 

 The national news is broadcasting the Lottery news about PB and MM. 

 The Paparazzi will be waiting for you noise-gate in Seychelles  Someone will blab your story. 

They’ve tweaked the odds. And it’s worked.

Not sure these days, but in years past you could find Safeway almost every state. 

I just want to say that I am ready and willing to win the $900 plus mil MM jackpot on friday.

I bought my tickets yesterday (Wednesday). I got 5 lines with the Megaplier and 5 lines without.

I am it it, so now it's all up to the number Gods to match my numbers to those that are drawn.

I admire your bravery using the Annuity amount instead of the C.V. less taxes. The Net.

 You will have fun in front of a horde of Press and curious players.

I'm not saying that I would do this, mind you, it's just a thought. If I won this jackpot as it stands right now ($900M, $297M post tax in my state) I could arrange it so that 59 of my friends and family and I could claim it together, 60 people receiving $5M each, after taxes!

Didn't know there was one here usually I just come here for knowledge and for sharing information although lately it feels like I come here to told Im wrong (without any actual evidence mind you). Nevertheless I'll stick with the site I was using it works for now. But good luck TheMeatman2005.

I didn't want to write something incorrect so I just used Google real quick to find this 

"The  problem is that in most cases, the IRS knows that it’s baloney. While it’s certainly possible to have agreements among family members (or friends, or co-workers) to enter into a lottery pool, the IRS will not look to kindly on post winning shams.  If audited, they will ask for the partnership agreement that existed prior to ticket buying. They will ask when the family members contributed the money. They will ask your history of buying tickets as a family, etc.

Lesson? If you are planning on sharing the lottery with other people, make sure that there is some sort of agreement beforehand."

If you had a document that was notarized prior to winning the lottery (like if you made the document had everyone sign it then had it notarized prior to 11pm est Friday) you should be good to go then. 

I had no idea that it mattered, as long as it was the wish of the winning ticket holder. I mean, all the taxes are being paid... But, I stand corrected, thanks paymentplan-man!

It is the government.  They want what you have both coming and going!

It isn’t as generous as you were being but keep in mind that this year an individual has a yearly gift tax exclusion of $15,000 and a life time gift/estate tax exclusion of $11,180,000. If you’re married you can give away double that amount.  If you go over that amount the tax can be as high as 40% paid for by the person giving the gift.

So I plan on giving away $22,700,000 to 25 people right off the top.  Again, not as generous as you want to be but at least it is something.

Yeah I think its because they can have a larger claim on more tax. Lets use two scenarios. The first one is everyone getting 5 million (59 members) and you getting the rest while the Second is you getting it all then gifting 5 million. 

1.) 59 members get $5 million each is $295Million. This leaves you with 218 million for yourself since the cash is 513. They will each be paying 2.1 million in taxes using your numbers of 37%federal and 5% state. So from the family the IRS gets 2.1*59 or almost $124 million. Now from your 218million they get $91.5 million in taxes. So final amount for the IRS is 124+91= $215.56 million. Your final amount is $126.5 Million after tax

For the 2nd scenario we will assume that you wont gift 5 million but 2.9 wince that's how much they would have received after tax in the first scenario. 

So 513 Million cash *.42 is $215.46 million which you already have figured. That leaves you with $297.36 Million of course. Now already the IRS got exactly the same amount from example 1's $215.56 except now you have to gift 2.9 million to those 59 other persons. After gifting 11.2 million every dollar after is taxed at 40%. Note however that there is a 15k exclusion per person but that number is so insignificant from the 2.9 million anyways so it wont change the math rather you add that in or not. 

2.) So we gift 2.9*59 which comes to $171 million. Lets go back and subtract this from your after tax amount and we see 297-171=126.5 so at this point the IRS got the same amount of money and you have the same amount of money after gifting. But then theres the 40% tax that comes into play since you gifted 171-11.2(lifetime exclusion)= 159.8million over the limit. Now the IRS is going to want 40% tax of that 159.8 million which is almost 64 Million in extra tax. 

 So at the end of the day they get an extra 64 million in tax which leaves you with a final amount of 126.5-64= 62 Million. 

This is why the IRS wont allow folks to claim this way. They want that extra 64 million!!

Yeah same $22 million is plenty to gift to family and friends. For me however there are more than 25 people that I would want to bless with some amount so while my brother might get $2 million a friend might see $100k or something like that. Regardless I plan on using that full $22 Million exclusion while it lasts.....Granted im not married (so its 11.1 million instead of 22 Million for me) but its not off the table right now.

Mega Millions is now $970 Million ( Cash value $548.6 Mil)

Oh yea! 

Wowza!  Thanks!  I’m psyched.  Meatman, do you think we will be looking at a billion by draw time?  I’m thinking yes...

Getting ready to blow paymentplanman's theory up....am anticipating $1 billion before sunset---west coast time.

SO even though as You said must have contract already in place before winning, You have not done this?

NOW to Your way of picking numbers: LOL So sorry for laughing first.. NOT   It seems to have worked out so well for you so far! How MANY TIMES have YOU WON?????

Ok Just heard it's already Jumped to $970, MILLION, Tomorrow being PAYDAY for Most. As i've thought from Wednesday morning will be over $1Billion and If paymentplan-man doesn't win with his all so perfect way of picking numbers since he's Won so many times trying His way.

Of Course I'm going to WIN But let's say I don't, just for kicks!   I do hope it Rolls until MY TICKET WINS!

Because my Birthday Is coming up next week. 

Yeah, waiting for his explanation of this one.

   Yup!  Christmas in October!!

LOL HE HE HA HA, HAD THAT VERY THOUGHT.....

THANK  YOU

I'll be there for your birthday (lottery) party! 

Good luck to you, my friend.

YES YOU WILL!!   WOOHOO and what a PARTY WE WILL HAVE........

You actually don't need to do any of that. Especially when the split is only between a few people or closely related people. Having a written agreement, notarized or not, is most beneficial when it comes to protecting yourself against false claims. 

Simple verbal agreements actually do hold up. If the assertions of all parties involved corroborate each other then it's a verbal agreement. And verbal agreements between small groups of people who split a jackpot are quite common. Verbal agreements are so powerful that there have been people who've won a share of a jackpot simply by claiming  convincingly that they had a verbal agreement with the winner. 

A verbal agreement between a large group of people with not a single shred of corroborating evidence is preposterously unlikely and will have the IRS at your door faster than you can say "tax evasion".

Contract or no contract, unless all 60 people were ACTUALLY in a pool where everyone gave money to buy the tickets, and each one agreed to split the winnings with the other 59 do not use this method to disseminate your winnings. There would be too many can of worms to open doing it this way. 

Set up a fund and give those 59 people $15,000/year over the course of 27 years.

Responding to two different posts.

1.) Why would I need any explanation, blue said he thought the Jackpot would reach 1 billion before the draw and I said I disagree. Its the equivalent of someone saying they think NY or CA will be the state that wins and me saying again that I disagree. Im not sure where anyone is formulating some crazy theory where I feel like im always right. But to set the record straight I DO NOT THINK I AM ALWAYS RIGHT. Also being wrong in this case isnt a bad thing. So bluedog101 if im wrong that's great just means more money for a lucky winner. 

To American Indians post

"SO even though as You said must have contract already in place before winning, You have not done this?

NOW to Your way of picking numbers: LOL So sorry for laughing first.. NOT   It seems to have worked out so well for you so far! How MANY TIMES have YOU WON?????"

Ill comment on the first part of "SO even though as You said must have contract already in place before winning, You have not done this?

I said I would gift $22 million to my family. I didn't say that I would write on a claim form that we are all winners. Im the only winner and then I gift the money to family. To break this down, as of right now I can give 11.1 million to anyone(s) that I want and not have to worry about the 40% estate tax. If I get married my wife can also give away 11.1 million to anyone(s) since I can give here how much ever I choose without seeing any tax repercussions. So I dont need a contract to do this. Even if I knew I was going to win I wouldn't make a contract like this anyways. I would still just gift the money. 

Now for "NOW to Your way of picking numbers: LOL So sorry for laughing first.. NOT   It seems to have worked out so well for you so far! How MANY TIMES have YOU WON?????"

Well to be honest Im not sure exactly what your trying to say so if you can further explain I'd be happy to make a comment but ultimately I dont think it matter how anyone picks numbers since over 99.99999% of us don't hit 3rd tier of higher anyways. So by all means laugh at how I do it it'd not going to help/hurt my odds. I think the last thing I said was that I Google search random number generator then select the first link click the correct draw game and use the pick there. Its still a random pick and I can get it for free just in case the guy at the register gives me a ticket with 1,2,3,4,5 (which I understand has the same chance of winning.

On another side note I think I may have convinced my gf to buy her first ticket!!

Yes I agree 100% I was only telling him that splitting it with 59 people (5mill each) the way he was saying wouldn't hold up with the IRS (as you said tax evasion)

If he was dead set on having each person get 5 million or 2.9 million after tax then the document (notarized) would be the best way to go about it while making sure he pockets the most money. And of course the people would actually have to give him money say 25 cents each and agree in the document that their 25cents represents their share of 5 million each down to whatever % that equates to(.92% of $548M is a bit over 5 million). The 15k a year would be the easiest way to give money but it would take well over 60 years before they saw even a million. Of course this whole thing is a perfect scenario.

The situation isn’t as complicated as all that.  I’m pretty sure that the courts have already determined that a lottery ticket given as a gift BEFORE the draw is worth the cost of the ticket.  So $2 or $3 if he sprung for the megaplyer. If the ticket wins the person who gave the ticket isn’t responsible for gift taxes because his gift was only the cost of the ticket not the winnings.

He just has to make sure his intent is known BEFORE the draw that these people are being given the gift of the ticket.  The best way, of course, is to notify the people involved in writing with a photo of the ticket in question.  In lieu of that he could probably photocopy the ticket, write down his intent that he is gifting the ticket to those people on the photo copy and get it notarized or do what is called a poor man’s notary: sign and date, seal it in an envelope, and mail it to himself so that it is postmarked before the draw.  When he wins he just takes the UNOPENED envelope to his competent attorney and explains the situation.  He can now prove his intent was formed before the ticket won.

As always he should keep in mind that any advice you get on the internet is potentially worth less than you paid for it. 

Thanks for all that info, LottoLucy, Paymentplan-man, and Teddi (if I missed someone, i apologize, I've been working all day and it was a lot of info to absorb! lol)

It's a nice thought, to be able to give so much to so many people at once, but perhaps it would be healthier for common folk like me to get a $189,000 gift ($11.2M/59 people), as opposed to $5M... $5M is truly a life changing amount of money, but that can be a bad thing, too. I'd be super-pleased if someone gifted me $189k, you bet your bottoms ;)

But, again, thanks for straightening me out on that! :)

I meant to say that was the only time to my knowledge when they sold more tickets (440 million) than possible combinations without a jackpot winner. My original point was the number of ticket sold in two consecutive drawings.