Powerball is heading toward a billion dollars

With so many streaming services, I've been loath to add another one. But if I won the big prize, I think I'd finally relent to adding Apple+.

I’d move to Western Europe.

That is a crazy amount of money... even if it's "only" $600M after all the taxes. I would probably need to go into hiding. I would much rather have 100x the chances to win $10M.

While it is at a billion, it is an annuity. If you take the cash option it is about 50% of the amount. Then you will get 380 million in CA as CA does not collect state tax on lottery winnings, 335 million in NY. So lets average it out in 350 million.

The current jackpot of 700 million offers a 318 million dollar payout lump sum. After taxes in NY 212 million. If you take it over 30 years you get about 23 million a year. Taxes will flucuate per year current rate at the federal level is 24%.

No matter how you receive it, it’s still an incomprehensible amount of money.

Quit my job as a governor contractor, which has been hellish in the last 6 months. Take my dog and partner off the grid for at least a month and just cook, read, and run. Then figure out how to spend my well-funded retirement delivering continual paper cuts to MAGA.

Buy a large Maison de maître with a great view of the lakes and mountains between Geneva and Montreux. Establish an artist in residence program for artists under 30. I don't know the good number to host? 5-10? They have their own kitchen and social areas but would have to socialise with me and my old artsy fatsy friends regularly. And they have to produce exhibits. I think insurance will be high. I would fund living expenses and supplies. They can be students from art schools earning credits at art school, too, but not all of them should be students.

Also I might take some engineers who want to do mechanical projects. That would be a good mix. Maybe a cute botanist or landscape architect or two. Accept proposals for 1 year garden design residency and they get it all funded, housing, stipend, paid manual workers to direct, and the grounds get a wild new garden every year or two.

Pay off every debt I have. Set up some trust funds for my family members. Help out any friend that needs help.Make some donations to my university and other charities. And then get the hell out of this shithole banana republic for good.

I'd buy a big house where we both could live.

I would give away a lot to organizations or institutions that have meant a lot to me—the public library in the city where I grew up, for example.

Hire competent assassins.

Live like the late, great Allan Carr.

Where does one find caftans?

I would start a large cat sanctuary similar to the Cat House on the Kings River.

I’d open it to the public so I’d have visitors to keep me entertained.

I might devote myself to helping families sue school districts that refuse to provide required services to disabled kids. There are a lot of these districts, and they usually get away with it.

I'll never understand the mentality - WTF is anyone going to do with a billion dollars? I think the prize should be split with 100 or 1000 people or more - think of how many lives would change, how the economy would be stimulated.....it's crazy to give it all to one person.

Get connected with the best gay pimps in Hollywood so that I could finally sink my cock into some celeb hole.

[quote] it's crazy to give it all to one person.

Even if there's just one winner, it doesn't necessarily mean one person.

Quit my job in TV, give a million to everyone I love and to some that I just like a lot (not celebrities), build a facility for gay and lesbian youths who are homeless, retire and rest.

[quote]No matter how you receive it, it’s still an incomprehensible amount of money.

Maybe to you.

I'd get the house painted and buy the cottage in Devon, UK that I've been admiring for months.

My relatives would be happy with their Christmas checks this year. So would the a certain small humane society in Vermont.

It is a frightening amount of money. A nobody catapulted into the economic stratosphere without the connections, staff or intelligence to understand and deal with it all. I don't want to win it. If I did, however, I'd lay low for a few months. I would imagine that there are firms whose job it is to manage all the legal and accounting needs of the super-wealthy. I would always take care of my inner circle, of course, but also create a philanthropic trust, giving money to causes I believe it. It actually could be a great deal of fun.

They do these obscenely big jackpots because the billboards and signs announcing it generate more sales. Sadly, this works a lot better for the lottery (assuming the sole goal is maximizing lottery revenue) than having 100x more winners but they win just $2M on average, which would be healthier for society.

I want to be in the IMDB, as a Producer or something (maybe as a Director or Writer later on). So I guess I'd just help finance some small movies.

And I want to die with an impressive address like Beverly Hills or Manhattan.

BBQ Lays chips and a Coke.

One of them changed things so that each ticket costs more but there are more winners of substantial prizes (several million and with a multiplier).

Gambling works because of the power of "maybe," something I learned from a professor of primates, the name I can't get at the moment...Robert Spol...

I'd spend it on male hookers and cocaine

I would move to either Mayfair in London or St. Jean Cap Ferrat in France and immediately denounce my US citizenship.

Italy here I come...

I would collect it via LLC so nobody knows I won. I will not tell anyone. Maybe just my partner.

20 million a year? its not an obscene amount for the first couple of years. You're not even .1%. I bet knowing you'll have 200 million in 10 years makes the first year seem frustrating a little bit if you have huge plans. Or perhaps the 2nd year. You'll be like, I'm going to have several hundred million, and I got used to having millions the first year, but now I want a super yacht and I can't afford it.

R32 If you're smart about it and collect the annuity for 30 years, there is no bank in the nation that would turn down advancing you the money.

Personally I would go to J P Morgan Private Banking, not just because they're the biggest bank in the world, but their Private Reserve card is the most prestigious in the world.

I already have a Charles Schwab account so I'll put it in there, help out my broke relatives, buy some gorgeous acreage somewhere and have a gothic Victorian mansion built, buy a bunch of muscle and classic cars, and give generous amounts to animal rescues, and take in foster pets.

I’d put it towards paying off my overdraft.

Get the fuck out of the united states

I’d stage an incredibly elaborate suicide with plenty of collateral damage.

I buy the occasional ticket on Jackpocket.

I'd pay off everything I have in layaway.

I’m old so can’t spend it all. I’d set up a charitable foundation that would fund causes I support long after I’m gone.

I would take the lump sum because I may not live another 30 years (I’m 52). Would love to say fuck you to my school district

The wrong people (which is to say, “anybody but me”) because either they’re poor and piss it away (no money skills) or rich and don’t need it. It wasn’t nearly as much as the jackpots are now, only a couple of million dollars, but still…

When I was in college, the family dentist won the state lottery. My mother asked him why he was still working and what he planned to do with his millions. He said he’d bought a new Imperial instead of a New Yorker that year but otherwise he just invested some of it and put the rest in the bank. Kept working for another 7 or 8 years.

I’d have put down the needle and the drill and closed the office but he said he’d rather keep going.

I would keep enough money to live in what I consider luxury (others would consider it modest comfort) for the rest of my life, and do a bit of traveling. Several people who have helped me get through hard times would get an equivalent amount. I'd set aside enough to put a first-class team of lawyers on retainer to protect me against lawsuits from my insane estranged family. The rest of the hundreds of millions would go to charity. As R17 said, who in their right mind needs to sit on a billion dollars?

Open an animal shelter

I was thinking about this thread today, and it occurred to me there’s no one in my life I’d trust to confide in if I won the lottery.

Imagine that— you win a billion dollars, but can’t tell anyone! That would be depressing. Luckily, I almost certainly don’t need to worry about it.

If you win and live in a state like New York, your name will become public, and every charity and freaksoid will be invade you looking for a hand out. After that, your best bet will be to move out of state or to a private island and leave no forwarding address. Better yet, move to a different planet. Your life on Earth will be over.

I would fake my own death.

R46 I think you can form an LLC and claim the winnings through that as a way to protect your identity.

You’d still need to talk to lawyers, bankers, and financial and tax advisors, R45 as well as living in a state where winners can collect anonymously. And trust in their discretion.

Only 16 states allow an individual to collect anonymously. Five or six, including CA and NY require the winners name to be posted. It’s public money, so ultimately if someone wanted to ask if it was you, I doubt the state could refuse to say who won and how much they got.

I have a semi- common name, so I’d have to tell people “sorry, wrong Bob Smith!” if I won.

I thought in California you could remain anonymous? That is bad news that you can’t. I would have to move to some steel gated fortress to keep scammers and criminals away (some of which are exes).

You purchase the ticket and collect in a state where you can keep your identity private, and you don’t tell anyone you won. Those stars are: Arizona Delaware Georgia Kansas Maryland New Jersey North Dakota Ohio South Carolina Texas Virginia

I would never purchase a ticket in a state with mandatory public reporting.

In NY, you can form an LLC to collect, nobody would know who you are.

Are there still some states that require you to do publicity if you win?

As in, you agree when you buy the ticket to participate in their publicity shots if you win?

Hopefully, that practice has ended.

Ownership of an LLC is a public record in most states. Only Delaware, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nevada have stricter privacy rules. If the article below is correct, you’ll need a lawyer in those states.

One fly in the ointment. An LLC formed and registered in one state can buy property in another, something that could make tracing ownership difficult.

Although an agnostic, I've offered God a pact of sorts. I'll be fine not experiencing the great luck of winning a fortune if I can be spared some great tragedy, e.g., 9/11, mass shootings. It's been some time since I bought a lottery ticket.

R51 if you collect the prize in California, your name is a public record.

Who would come to you with their hands out? I guess you never know. All my family seems to be comfortably middle class or rich. If a friend came to me I might give a little bit. Not huge sums.

I would do what Bezos' ex-wife is doing.

I’m going to space with Gayle! 🤡

I have never been tempted to buy one of these things, but I bought one today. If I hot the jackpot I will buy the DL

I'd rent Roman Todd for a week.

R56, the one you need to make a deal with is the DEVIL, not god.

Hookers (male) and Cocaine

It’s pronounced “hookers and blow,” r64.

Mansions and sports cars

Damn I forgot to buy a ticket for tonight's drawing

You gonna have scammers coming out of the wazoo, targeting you. They will pretend to bump into you, make up stories and sue you etc.

Your friends and family will get jealous and if you gift them too little $, they will be upset coz humans are never satisfied.

R65 I know. I was actually just repeating what some guy told a reporter on live TV when they were asking random people what they'd do with the money. It was hilarious because it was live and you could tell he meant it.

Winners who have no concept of large amounts of money actually end up broke. They will buy a mansion, not realizing adding 20000 feet to your living space ups the cost of heating and cooling, insurance, real estate taxes....They buy expensive cars for themselves and friends some of them get swndled into bad deals. The best advice is if you win a large sum (anything over 1 million) call a lawyer first and get some advice.

I won!

$8

nobody won the jackpot!