Right, yeah no one is going to buy tickets because no one cares anymore.  Just us.

I got my tickets this morning!

Let's go Mega Millions!

Christmas in October!

Rolling rolling baby,

got to keep on rolling!

Big $6 winner here...LOL

May have to rethink my MM chosen numbers this time     ...... Onward we go with the PB tonight.. stay thirsty in the hunt my friends.

7 is my lucky number.

I played #'s from a foreign lottery for MM.  One of them had 34 for the last # and said I can't use that so will add them together=7 for the Gold Mega Ball.

Good luck to you tonight Artist77 on Powerball!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KPplYp7K7M     

or this version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA6qZEjzqQg   (just for BD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unOlaq9TlVE     <----good jingle

I'm never much good for anything once a jackpot gets this high, my head is in the clouds daydreaming. lol

couple of good toe tappers thar , CD 

but I still like this one this is the life by Weird Al

CDanaT,

Is the guy at the end of the jingle music?

Ya knoooooooowwww CT, I was sorta thinking that very same thing 

HT..... That one could apply to a few of our fellow posters 

I'll gladly take tonight's PowerBall jackpot and slip into obscurity. 

WOW..thanks for posting those from youtube; played 'em both...long forgotten from childhood and the oldies channel never ever plays them.

I will move the cash to Sweden!

.

I hear you man, but the lotto gotto stop rollin' some time.
Just let me win my 1 million (2nd prize), and I'll be set, I think, because of the taxes.

I hope the Trump Administration makes a mandataory lotto, which takes a buck out of each person's paycheck, and has a national lotto once a month, for all legally employed persons, JUST in the USA.

This would include all the people on SS, disablty.  etc.

But, if he does, I'd hope he drops the odds of the game considerably, because the odds  are driving folks like you and me crazy.

I have a feeling PB wont be won until mega wins so Ill wait some more. I was just looking at the cash amounts and was surprised to note that even though this jackpot is what 2million shy of being the 3rd highest annuity amount it's 100million dollars less than that same amount. Granted no one would care but it still seems crazy that the amounts have such a difference while only being 2 million less than each other. I was really hoping it hit on Friday and Im praying that it doesn't reach one Billion 

The fluctuating bond yields have thrown this advertised jackpot (annuity vs. cash option spread) all out of whack. They base it off of the amount of cash in the pot, divide it by the current bond (treasuries, I guess) rates, and that is how they come up with the advertised jackpot. A month ago it was the cash amount divided by 0.60, last week it was cash divided by 0.58, last night's drawing was cash divided by 0.565, and now it's the cash in the pot divided by 0.57.

Any number can be drawn.  7 does sound good.

There will be a winner by Friday night.   There is something weird about the lottery amt and perhaps I think the winner(s) come from New England,  CA,  Floriday,  Michigan???

Good luck Bluedog! Like your strategy.

 The 2nd prize winner came from a State that is not close to the ocean, that explains everything and l expected this ruse.

 * The Winner on Tuesday comes from a State with an Ocean View. 

With 57 million tickets sold there was less than a 20% chance of somebody winning the jackpot. Sales were 19 million more than the previous drawing, but I believe the real ticket buying frenzy won't start until the cash value reaches $500 million. 

"no one cares anymore"

If anything, players know the difference between a fake jackpot and the real money after taxes.

Foreign jackpot winner incoming...

Certainly won't be the first time, though best of my knowledge not for this amount.  One in Florida and one in Oregon in recent memory.

I am ready.  I picked out the Hotel, Bank, and Post Office that I will need. 

 I may delay my claiming day in order to get a Living Revocable Trust and an LLC Limited Liability Company. Plus insurance.  Get my Legal and Financial ducks in order.

 I will need a personal loan to tide me over until I get the check. Don't worry I will not do what David Lee Edwards did and go to Las Vegas with a $200,000.00 loan. 

Best Weird Al ever!

One more minute, you've got to love the words........

"I burned down the malt shop where we used to go

just because it reminds me of you"

too bad it never played on radio;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWhpk-8QLFQ

Reading your post music had me assuming that you had come into the possession of a palantir & gazed into it...

" l picked out a bank, may delay my claiming day, get my legal and financial ducks in order, l will need a personal loan to tide me over until l get the check."- Impressive to say the least.

Which reminds me of this quote.

" Optimists have a tendency to make lemonade out of lemons, and to then see the glass as half-full rather than half-empty. It's an admirable quality, one that can positively affect mental and  physical health. Some optimists consistently ascribe benevolent motives to others and interpret situations in the best possible light; others simply disassociate their internal mood from external circumstances, no matter how sticky. Adding in a bit of complexity, the latest research shows that  tempering a sunny disposition with a small dose of realism, or even  pessimism, might be the best way to build  resilience and achieve one's  goals." - Psychology Today.

More Power to you!

I love this quote! Write your goals down each and every day, keep your eyes open for opportunity when it smiles upon you, recognize and act upon it, and surround yourself with advisors to teach and guide you on your way.

 This is where l will be, should l bag this baby.

And here...l couldn't help myself.

No winner in Power Ball last night so now the total up for grabs is $999 mil

MM $654 PB $345

I used LP's  Quick Picks Generator for 5 sets for each game.

If I win, don't worry Todd, you will get a commission.

You are generous and thoughtful. How big of a commission? or tip?

 Thank You for the update on the $999,000,000.00  It may reach a billion dollars before the draws.

That's a Teaser there music*...999 million...Notice MM or PB hasn't upped the ante @ all so we may be stuck there.

Second tier prizes won in MI & NE for Powerball, so much for the coastal theory though it does seem to apply to the top tier prize.

If I were to win the jackpot I would ask for it all in unwrapped hand counted pennies :)

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”

Not enough pennies in the us for this though. you figure there's at max 2 trillion pennies although that's being generous. 2Trillion pennies is just 20Million. Sorry I ruined your joke 

I went out to purchase a (1) ticket for Tues and Wednesday and had the fortune to stand behind a woman who was running 20-ish slips through the machine.  1 line per slip and then verified each slip to the ticket and THEN had her grandson verify that her verification was correct.  I had plenty of time to drink my coffee, and go back and get a refill (clerk told us all to go ahead and get refills cuz this was a weekly "outing" for this family.  The man behind me was disappointed I only got 1 pick per game.  He was hoping to get an additional cup of coffee out of the wait.  :)

You might not have won the lottery, but won the patient person award.  My mouth would have said 'Eff this' and left or went to the self service lottery machine if your state/store has them.

I would have held out for donuts !!! 1 chocolate and 1 plain and none of those fufu ones either !!!

In my little town (pop 2500, give or take) there are three men who have won million dollar plus jackpots (actually, one was $1000/week for life, but that was more than 20 years ago, so it's officially a million plus by now) and I see one of these guys in the store where I always get my gas, coffee, and tickets. He's always got a fistful of scratch-offs to turn in for redemption, and he shoots the breeze with the clerk and anyone who stops in. When a customer comes in, he'll step aside and let the clerk take care of the customer, so as not to be in anybody's way. The other jackpot winner I know is always volunteering his time in the community, plowing snow and such things, and he's quick to buy you a beer or your lunch if he's in the pub eating his lunch.

lowellm, Thank You for the positive stories. Especially originating from ILLINOIS. I only hear bad news from Chicago. Good Luck!!

You're sure welcome, music*! Down state Illinois is a whole other world compared to Chicago (although Chicago is a surprisingly friendly city to visit, I must say!) Best of Luck to you, as well!

My Curmudgeonmobile!

My Lottery Dream Home airs at 1pm EDT on HGTV today.

Kinda reminds me of my experience in a neighboring city, when the jackpot was over a billion. A jackpot counter hogger, oh my..

Same here on Pacific Time 1 pm - 3 pm. HGTV  Thank You Original Bey!

Are you still planning on doing the Seychelles and Madagascar?

And the problem with that would be what exactly?

The first few episodes in the series were good, after that, everyone they featured were people who only won $1 million or less. After taxes, what is left to buy a house means the houses are no different than what we see on House Hunters. Made me lose interest. Especially considering how the show is billed. 

Reminds me of that lottery documentary that was done where all the winners still lived in their old homes, still drove their old cars, still clipped coupons, still bought their belongings from yard sales and still worked the same jobs. It was incredibly boring. 

Awesome!

Teddi,  You might enjoy the first show listed for 1 pm. PDST. It will feature Rick and Lori Knudsen who won $180 million here in California.

Now you're talking.

No problem at all mate,I just have a sneaky feeling that this jackpot is going to make history...

I really hope not the higher it the greater chance of more than one winner which means one person could have just won it weeks ago so that the rest of us don't go insane with lottery fever 

Let's just say.... To be determined!

Hmmm, like the first person to win from a country in southern Africa?  That kind of history? 

It would give an interesting spin to the coastal theory making the rounds. 

Yes l am Teddi. The pics above are of the Seychelles. I expect to visit your homeland as well & throw a few coins in the local fountain.Btw- where have you been? When l don't see certain posts from members of LP, l sometimes fear the worst. However " Look all around, there's nothing but blues skies, Look straight ahead...."

...and l read somewhere that just off the Namibian coast, they are dredging for diamonds LL. In desperate times, one sometimes has to look to far off lands for fortunes.

And all we have to do to look for fortunes is to go down to the corner convenience store and say...."One Mega Millions and one Power Ball ticket please"

With the megaplier or power play. Lol

I'm sure this has been said a lot but if i dont win i want to see it grow. We already have seen a 1.5 billion prize. I want to see 2 billion. And i want to see one person win it. Also, id like to be that person. Just throwing it out there to the Lotto Gods if they are listening.

I couldn't have said It better myself TMM.

At the current bond rates, the jackpot would need to be around $3.1B before I (an Illinois taxpayer, 4.95%) would clear $1B after taxes. I've always said, I'll either win big, or not at all! So far I've kept that promise!

I'd love to be below 5%. I live in NJ 8%. So they cut deep in my lotto pie. I think my take home amount is around 253m after both federal and state. I think i might be able to scrape by with that total.  :)

Haha, you might still need to clip coupons to make ends meet... Since the federal tax cut, I just figure the cash option x .58 to allow for both state and federal taxes. In this drawing it would come out to $216,000,000. Remember, the lottery takes out 24% for federal taxes, but you'd still owe 13% more come tax time, plus state taxes. I'd put 10% of that into a charitable foundation, so that would reduce the taxable basis a little bit.

I am curious about one thing, Once they take out Fed and State taxes the first time, Do they continue to take them out year after year ? Do they go after the interest it generates in the bank ?

Hey, it looks like we used to be neighbors ;) Back in '90 & '91 I was stationed at the Navy base in Philly. I miss those cheese steaks!

Nope, they can only take them out for that one year, after that it's yours to keep. You can invest it, or keep it under your mattress and they cannot touch it. But if you invest it, whatever money you make from those investment is taxable. Invest it in conservative stocks that pay dividends, or in mutual funds, and the money it earns will be taxed at the lowest rates.

LOL. Yeah if anything i have a tough choice to make when i am in the mood for a ch steak. There are so many great places to get them. i have 2 within a mile of my house. I used to work at the yard for a few jobs back in the early 80s. I worked on the USS Forrestal, I was surprised when i saw it in the news recently about John McCain. I was like Hey i worked on that !! Small world.

I cleaned up a couple of barges and worked on a destroyer we were giving to Pakistan. We were welding and pulling cable when they were sleeping 3 to a bunk. They were smiling at us and laughing as sparks would be shooting by their heads. lol I guess they didnt want to give up their bed because someone would snatch it up.

Haha, too funny! Yeah, I went to Hull Maintenance Technician training there to get my Fireman rating. In training we watched videos about the Forrestal, during Viet Nam it took some serious damage and <snip> near burned to the waterline. They had to push aircraft off the deck into the ocean! 

I wonder whatever happened to it. What do they do with old ships that get decommissioned ?

They used to scrap them. They said they turned them into razor blades. The Forrestal would sure make a lot of razor blades, lol

It I think will go to $700.   The question is this.  If no winning ticket will it go to $800.

.

Wander73,   I'm going to guess, if it's not won by Tue.,  then we could see +1.25 billion, on Fri..
I, for one, tell everyone to play, when it gets this high.
I'd like to know that everyone does the same.

We are all just too greedy.
Mr. Groppo

Your curiosity is well founded RG. Look at it this way, the Federal Govt is going after ANY revenue that is generated. In the case of a jackpot win, they come for their cut, which is inescapable. That total is * 37%

When the money " your millions" that you have in the bank generates interest, they interested in that " interest" as well, since it is money " earned."  Hope that helps.

<<<The Feds!

Mega Millions is a slow roller so I think that it will have to not be won to roll past $700 million to Friday night.-weshar75

Groppo, if not won Tuesday then there's a chance that combining the two lotteries it would come to $1.25 billion.

As for Mega Millions alone, there is no way MUSL would increase it to $1.25 billion by Friday.  Not going to happen.  Now in a month of Fridays--MAYBE. 

Hopefullly MM will keep rolling to your 700+ & beyond, that way I can sneak in there and win PB and no one will notice.  :)

If the winner can get their ("his/her" is grammatically correct, but I'll use "their" since it sounds less clunky, lol) ducks in a row in time, they can turn in their ticket a couple of days before the election, that way the announcement would be stifled by all the shouting and politicking!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcsdSx7NecA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cRNWf1-AmY

This was a follow up to your video and it sounded logical

There was also another follow up to this video and it mentioned claiming via "lottery trust" then creating a"bridge trust" to have access to your funds and protect your identity....Haven't heard of that method/option before...

Choices, choices.... Nice to have options and learn about them

Cool to watch.  That guy about 1/3 way through, didn't he say he's a millionaire and didn't have to change light bulbs anymore?  I think he was the guy who changed light bulbs in the twin towers in NYC and won I think $5 million.  Always wondered what happened to him.

Times certainly have changed.  Folks almost seem to yawn @ these sky high jackpots.  Not me and love the media coverage pre-drawing.

Thank you Original Bey for posting this youtube clip.

Scrolling through FB and there was Gio in a clip on GMA (today?) talking about MM jackpot.

Oh Original Bey...loved that Yolanda Vega was in the first clip.  New York really hit the jackpot on choosing her for that fun job.

She has a wonderful energy as though she herself were the winner. Love that.

Yes. Amidst all the hype this is a much needed sobering perspective. Some people have played for decades. To win and screw it up would be heartbreaking. I expect that from an occasional player though not an LP member. #FingersCrossed

Looked her up, forgot she's a double nickel baby like me and birthday five days before mine.  WTG Sagittarians!!

Que rico!

December 3rd here!

#SagLife

Or you can invest it in triple tax free municipal bonds. Then there is no tax on any of the interest at all.

Yep, that's another strategy... If a fella didn't mind the work involved, he could invest in multi-family apartment buildings. The income is mostly depreciated, and when he sells one of the buildings he can roll the profit into a 1039 exchange and defer the tax bill indefinitely, as long as he invests it into another apartment deal of greater value.

Bleudog101 et al these are are links and videos of the NYS Lottery first $5 mil winners.

Lou Eisenberg and Curtis Sharp.

Both of them went broke. Let's not make the same mistakes they made if/when we win!

 CLICK TO READ                     Once famous lottery winner now broke

Country's most famous lottery winner is now living off his pension, Social Security checks

A story about Curtis Sharp

http://www.wicz.com/story/38218089/im-yolanda-vega-lottery-queen-does-more-than-announce-the-numbers

Story on Yolanda Vega

Thanks TheMeatman2005; I knew somebody changed light bulbs and he checked his ticket @ the WTC.  Sometimes my brain cells kick in.

She's a hoot for sure and a huge asset to the New York lottery.  Wonder what her salary is and I'm sure Miguel has long since retired as a police officer.

  Thank You TheMeatman2005.  We should look ahead and think about what our lives will be like thirty years in the future. Especially after winning. 

 Lou Eisenberg and Curtis Sharp have taught me many lessons.

Back in 2007, LP reported that her salary salary is just over $64,000 a year. She's probably in close to six figures now. https://www.lotterypost.com/news/150025

No increase yet...no one is buying tickets.

Are you sure?  I think MUSL would dispute your claim.  The media will no doubt report on one state or another that X number of tickets were sold/minute.

I think that if Powerball wasn't way up there I'd agree with you on slower Megamillions ticket sales.

Seriously doubt they'll up the jackpot.  Why would/should they?

I think jj is actually the guy that was known as Baghdad Bob.

A lot of players might be plunking down their coins across both games - Powerball and Mega Millions. If MM rolls over and PB is won Wednesday, it will be a wild ride to Friday! 

Mega Millions are aggressive with their rollovers as of recent. People are buying tickets. I plan to purchase five or 10 lines with Megaplier tomorrow. Mega Million sales typically lag behind PB 2:1 in typical draws. I'm sure PB is stealing a considerable amount from MM considering how high PB is. But an increase of $106 Million from the last MM draw is not too shabby. 

Oh wow "county's most famous". That headline seems a bit over the top. Especially since its a name I've never heard of before nor can I recognize it. When I hear about famous lottery winners it has to be someone who won a lot or did something super crazy. Blowing 5 million (less after taxes) doesn't seem like something that's hard to accomplish. Stupid yes but quite easy.

Close to 4 decades ago. 5 million in the 80s is nothing to sneeze at by any means,

The only thing about this is that the amount you get with municipal bonds can easily be beaten. The interest rates are usually the smallest in terms of investing which makes sense, they are after all typically safe and come interest free (as long as they are within your state) For a real time representaion lets say you invest 50million through municipal bonds (10 years) at a interest rate of 3%. That means you make 1.5 million. Then next year you invest 50 million using <insert investment> with a interest rate of 6% which is highly likely depending on said investment. 6% of 50 million is $3 M and if you subtract the taxes 37% plus a average of 5% for state you will make more from your investments (more if not state income tax). This is why your average person wont just use municipal bonds because it's not too hard to beat.

What's the equivalent ...less than 20Million. Sports players, entertainment icons, and trust fund babies have blown through more. Im just saying that compared to people who lost more that title doesn't really fit. Especially since its from a time when a majority of the worlds population was to young to even play the lottery. You can't be the most famous of something when someone has surpassed you by such a large margin. Even back then when the article was made there were lotto winners with 9 figure wins.

I don't care for bonds of any kind, personally. They are safe, sure, but let's say you invest $50M in bonds @6%, $3M/year minus taxes for the term of the bond. At the end of the term you get your $50M back, only by now $50M isn't worth the same as it was when you invested it due to inflation. Therefore, you weren't really earning $3M/year minus taxes, you were actually spending some of your principal every year as it deflates. I'd rather buy solid dividend paying stocks (General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Coca Cola, Kraft Heinz, etc...) which pay a nice dividend (4.5% for Gen Mills, for example.) Dividends are taxed as long term capital gains (much lower than earned income) meanwhile the underlying stocks double in value every 8-10 years, thus keeping way ahead of inflation.

Uh ......................I never said to invest in bonds. In fact I'm against it. Sooooooooooooooooo not sure if you're replying to me or just making a general comment

I hope they both get hit tonight and tomorrow night before the insanity increases.

Haha, sorry about that. I never meant to imply that you were for or against it. I was just commenting on bonds. But, since I copied your comment I can see why you'd think I was scolding you, lol.

Yes lawd please. I don't know why people want to see super huge jackpots. Theres a certain point where you reach the "I have more money than I would ever need" category. We have certainly reached that point. Now every draw sets me back 2-10 more bucks. For clarification I only play when the pot gets really big. $450 M +