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Roundup: Mega Millions Worth $540 Million
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The Mega Millions drawing scheduled for tonight at 11 PM has a record breaking prize – $540 million (update: $640 million!), $389 million if you choose the lump sum over the annuity. The tickets are just a buck and you pick six numbers. Of the first five, you pick from a number between 1 and 56; for the sixth you choose from between 1 and 46. Match all six, win the entire prize. Match fewer than all six and you can still win.
Here’s the prize table:
| Match 1st 5 # | Match 6th # | Prize | Odds |
| 5 | 1 | Jackpot | 1 in 175,711,536 |
| 5 | 0 | $250,000 | 1 in 3,904,701 |
| 4 | 1 | $10,000 | 1 in 689,065 |
| 4 | 0 | $150 | 1 in 15,313 |
| 3 | 1 | $150 | 1 in 13,781 |
| 3 | 0 | $7 | 1 in 306 |
| 2 | 1 | $10 | 1 in 844 |
| 2 | 0 | $10 | 1 in 844 |
| 1 | 1 | $3 | 1 in 75 |
| 0 | 1 | $2 | 1 in 75 |
The odds of winning anything is 1 in 40 and you can buy a ticket up until 10:45 PM! You playing?
- The Hunger Games Investment Series at GobankingRates.com is a clever poll based on the popular trilogy, which recently just debuted in movie theaters.
- Mikey Rox at Wise Bread shares 25 things to never pay full price on. The list goes from magazines to video games to even condoms!
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- I like it when Ramit does case studies of what real people are doing, this time he talks about how Claire used Craigslist to make $8,000 on the side doing freelance work at $50 an hour.
- I love consignment stores, a subject Trent wrote about yesterday. I don’t buy a lot of clothes there but you can find plenty of other things there on the cheap.
Have a great weekend and good luck if you’re playing the Mega Millions!
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One tickets, that’s it. I don’t usually play, but thought what the heck, why not buy just one for ha-ha’s.
I am playing 5 numbers.
Nothing like HUGE numbers to make smart people turn stupid.
It’s worth the thrill though.
I decided to buy one ticket understanding that it is for entertainment not an investment plan. I also decided to write a blog post with my thoughts on lottery vs. investing.
-Rick Francis
Hubs is in an office pool with 31 others and counting. If they win, the company is probably going to fold after they all retire
1 ticket, now up to 640 mil!
I’d love to be able to buy stuff at garage sales and flip it on craigslist or ebay. However, I do not know the value of things or how to determine what is valuable. I watch Storage Wars on A&E channel. However, the consignment store owners have connections with appraisal shops that I do not have. What seems like an old beat up barbie doll to me that nobody would want could be some rare model worth thousands of dollars.
I think it would be just mind-blowingly hilarious if there was, once again, no winner. Let’s shoot the moon! How high can we get this thing?!
They said on the news last night that based on the number of tickets sold, there’s only a 5% chance of that happening.
Ah yes lotteries: a tax on the mathematically challenged!
Actually, I read an article written by a statistician that it is the mathematically correct decision to buy a ticket when the Expected Value of the ticket is greater than $1. He did all the math based on total odds of winning, taxes, sharing prizes, etc and the EV of a ticket is greater than $1 when the total jackpot is over $330M.
Sorry, but I don’t think he did the math correctly.
Playing the lottery all the time is pretty dumb, but when the jackpot’s this high it can be pretty fun!
The cutoff is 10:45 PM ET, which is 7:45 in PT
The winning numbers were 02-04-23-38-46, and the Mega Ball 23.
Wow they are seriously big numbers. I wish I could play but I’m a UK citizen not a US one……
I am not sure canadians can buy this lotery ticket.
Just a quick question on your last statement “The odds of winning anything is 1 in 40″ . . how did you come up with that if the best chance of winning anything is 1 in 75. Just curious, as I probably need a lesson in math here:)
When you sum up all the odds, it’s 1 in 40 that you win something. I also pulled it from the Mega Millions website so I didn’t do the math myself.
I just read an article about how miserable people are who win jackpots like this. Basically, the money is nice but there are so many people that come out of the woodwork, begging, asking, stealing, cheating, or suing you for your new found money, it’s not worth is.
To quote an awesome movie: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play…
Ha! Didn’t buy any but everyone and his/her mom around me did!
No one in CA even won haha