http://www.valottery.com/decadesofdollars/howtoplay.asp I occasionally throw a few dollars every now and then at some lottery tickets but I must say this game intrigues me more than Mega Millions or Powerball. Drawings are Mon & Thurs...You pick 6 numbers 1-47 and if you match 6 you get $250,000 a year for 30 years or $4,000,000 CASH! Odds of matching 6/6 are 1 in 10,737,537. other prizes include 2/6 Free ticket, 3/6 $10, 4/6 $100, 5/6 $10,000 and 6/6 $250,000 a year for 30 year or $4,000,000. This is being played in VA, KY & GA. Some perspective Mega Millions odds are 1 in 175,711,536. I might get a ticket for the first draw Thurs Feb 3rd. Play Hurley's numbers...04-08-15-16-23-42? I believe I would take the $4,000,000 cash. [edit] The only thing that sucks is it cost $2 a ticket instead of $1.
Is that $4,000,000 for every one with the winning numbers no matter how many people have the winning numbers? I imagine quite a few people will use Hurley's numbers.
Getting 250,000 a year for 30 years instead of 4,000,000 cash at once at least prevents you from doing really stupid things with the money. And it's a lot more, too.
@MissChicken It says the prize is set unless there are 3 or more winners...then they would share in the $10,000,000 cap....so a bunch of people would share $10,000,000. @JarodRussell Yeah taking an annuity is generally wiser...unless one is just paranoid. Or wants to blow it fast.
If you take Hurley's number and they came up I think you would be sharing with quite a few people. A few years ago one of a local community papers had Lotto numbers that came up with the second prize which was usually a few thousand dollars. Usually only about 2% of the prizes go to Tasmanians (because we only make up 2% of the Australian population) but one this particular draw about 80% of the winners were Tasmanians and the prize was only $117.
^ I always think it is funny when alot of people win...this happens alot with Pick 3 & Pick 4 games...a bunch of people will play 777 or 5555 and win and the the state lottery has to pay out a bunch of money.
I'm with the idea of spreading it out over 30 years too.. The idea of getting a lump sum worth millions has its charms, to be sure, but the potential headaches of managing that much money are mind boggling.. With 250k a year, you can still pay off your home in quick fashion, buy a really nice car, put money away for the kids' college funds, donate significant amounts to charity and go on some seriously nice vacations... BUT... You'll also have that need/desire to work intact.. You're not SO secure that you can just give up on what you do.. 250k is a lot of money, but it spends fast. With 4 million, you'd be tempted to just quit your job and live the playboy lifestyle... Frankly, I think I'd become bored very quickly...
My worries with taking the $250,000 a year would be my age. In am turn 53 this month and if I take $250,000 a year instead of 4,000,000 I would have to live 16 more years to get my 4,000,000. That doesn't take into account that I could invest some of the $4,000,000. If I invested $3,000,000 at 5% I would be making $150,000 a year and still have 1,000,000 to buy a nice house. I believe that in the USA lottery wins are taxed. How much of the 4,000,000 would be lost to tax? In Australia, where lotteries are paid out in lump sum, the initial money is not taxed but you are taxed on the interest you make off it.
35% Fed Tax & for me 4% State Tax...so 39% all together not counting other things that could come up.
I shouldn't say that Tattslotto isn't taxed in Australia. The taxes are taken out before the money reaches the Prize pool. This means that if the first prize in $4,000,000 and is won by one person s/he gets the full $4,000,000.
I did get a ticket for the first draw...I didn't play Hurley's numbers...but I may get another one Thursday. @Marillion Yeah...like I said the annuity seems wiser...but then again having a $4,000,000 lump sum...
The annuity is a rip off. First of all, you're gambling you'll live long enough to receive all the payments. This is an age-dependent gamble of course, but still, why risk it? Second, you're gambling that inflation will remain consistently low enough not to significantly erode the value of the payment over the years. This is a bad gamble to make, considering the macro climate. Thirdly, you're gambling that you can't control your spending enough to save and invest enough of the lump sum to earn enough in compound interest, dividends and capital growth to more than cancel out the greater total of the annuity. This is an extraordinarily poor gamble to make given relatively small difference in the totals (7.5m vs 4m) over such a long annuity period. All things being equal, I'd take the lump sum every time! Nice to have the choice though!
^ Yeah I'd rather take the lump sum. [update] I did win a free ticket! hopefully I can land the big one Monday.
The annuity is their way of screwing you out of the full purchasing power of the win, so yeah, it's a rip off.
I agree with Holdfast. Even though 4m is less than 7.5m, it's not significantly less, and lifestyles it could buy would be very similar. But with only 250k per year, you're be limited in terms of buying property, buying/setting up a business, or setting yourself up quickly with plenty of luxuries. You'd be forced to wait for several years before you could afford to do some things.
I don't know that you'd be all that limited. You'd just have to approach your purchases differently. They'd be investments. You might not be able to pay for your awesome new house in full, but you could put down a helluva down payment and pay it off in a much shorter time. It would force you not to blow all your winnings at once.
The "blow your winnings at once issue" is only really a problem for the perennially financially incompetent or those who have never done anything but live paycheck to paycheck anyway, regardless of how much they've earned, even on above subsistence wages. And if that's the case, they'll do exactly the same on 250kpa as if given a multi-million lump sum. Some people just don't understand money, and I bet these people would find a way to end up in really serious debt on 250kpa anyway.
My brother, a single man, used to have an income of about $100,000 a year and yet had far more trouble managing than I do and my income is only $18,000 a year. While I was content to buy second-hand clothes, my brother had to have $1000 suits etc. When I was happy to eat a homemade stew, my brother was eating out at restaurants every night. When my brother became too ill to work, he had no savings, no investments, he even had to ask my mother to send him money to get back to Tasmania. Before he asked her he had asked me for money but I told him I didn't have any even though I did have more than $1000 in my bank (I was saving up to visit my sister in Adelaide). I think my brother would be able to blow 4 million easily. I, on the other hand, would buy a modest house in the neighborhood I currently live in. I would probably buy a house/or units for each son, I would safely invest at least two million and live of some of the interest that those investments would produce. The rest of the interest I would reinvest.