So let's see: I haven't checked the probabilities given on the Powerball site, but trusting them, it's not worth buying a ticket unless the grand prize is at least about $500 million, in the sense that the expected winnings* is $2, which leaves you with a net gain of $0. So a $9.4 million grand prize leaves you expecting to lose a dollar and change off a 2 dollar ticket. With 1.3 billion as the prize, the expected winnings is about $4.77, for an expected net gain of $2.77. Which is surprisingly positive! Maybe not enough to cover any externalities involved in buying the ticket, such as all the other ticket buyers, but still, positive! *Summing up each prize times the probability of getting that prize; also known as what you'd get if you took one of each possible ticket, totaled up the corresponding prizes, and then divided by the number of tickets; the "average" winnings of a given ticket.
:D lol i took a while for me to parse that. at first, i thought you meant you were gonna actually buy the members, instead of buy things for the members, with the money you won.
No, you can win a minimum of nothing. That's how Powerball, and other such lotteries, can actually make money: most people who buy tickets don't win anything, and thus their net result is a 2 dollar loss. The distinction is that the minimum prize is $4. But not every ticket gets you a prize. And that's the way they get you: people who buy lottery tickets tend only to look at the prizes, and not at the truly vast swath of tickets that don't win any prizes at all.
1.3 billion dollars is such an unimaginably large sum of money to me that I have no idea what I'd do with it. At my current level of expenses (relatively but not entirely shoestring, and helped along considerably by living somewhere with socialized health care), $100,000 would square me away for an entire decade! Even dreaming big, I know I'd set up my mom and her husband with a chunk of it so she doesn't have to do hard physical work for the rest of her life. She's 58 as it is.
Sometimes the lottery where I live as a jackpot of about 30 million, and that's quite a lot I think :P I can't imagine winning 1.3 billion. I'd totally pay of my parents mortgage though, get their house fixed up, and their garden, give money to my brother and sister. Perhaps to my one aunt and uncle for my cousin. Buy a house and a nice car for myself. Go on holiday a lot when I have the time. Take a year off work to go travelling maybe. Other than that I really don't know :P
I'd go to Washington University in St. Louis, set aside some money to buy/build a house for me and my friends plus a little extra so I didn't have to worry about bills for awhile, give my family members some of it so they could pay off their debts and get in better living situations, and then the rest goes to charity. Maybe divy it up to kids who are gonna graduate from the foster care system so they can go to college or have a little buffer find a place to live/work. Or maybe people who are in debt because of medical bills and stuff. Saving people who are at or bellow the poverty line in general so they can get out of the trap.
I'd pay off my friend's colleges loans, buy my childhood home so my bro can have it, fix my mom's house, split the money between me, my bro, and my folks, and I'd go to art school. After that, keep enough to have a comfortable life and find a job I enjoyed, and make a scholarship for kids who can't afford college, and give out half/full tuition as I could to them so they could do what they wanted/liked. I'd also drop a few hundred+ in every "help me with this important thing" indigogo/w/e thing I see that doesn't reach it's goals.
-pay off moirail's student loans -set a significant chunk aside to gain interest (retirement, education for my kids, etc) -pay off my parents' mortgage and other debt -build a comfy little house -help finance my siblings' education/get them settled -travel the fucking world -become a serious patron of the arts and sciences -invest all over the fucking place wait no after paying bills and clearing debt my first thing would be to call Warren Buffett and say what the FUCK do i do with all this money
Seriously. 1.3 billion dollars is so much money, you could give yourself an allowance of $100,000/year (ten times what I currently live on!) and that would last you thirteen thousand years.
Buy several people on here a new house or houses in locations of their choice, give myself like $3,000 to go hog wild with, give a couple reputable charities some serious donations, set aside some for any hypothetical kids, or second cousins (or extremely hypothetical nieces/nephews, i suppose), put some away for later use/donation, throw a nice amount at my geology department, set up some scholarships and grants with the rest.
Remember that you don't really get 1.3 billion. You'd get just under half of that if you opted for cash value upfront after tax. The sucky thing about winning that much is that every asshole you are slightly related to will feel entitled to a share. I'd buy places to live for people but they would remain in my name. Largely because I would want to cover tax and maintenance, and because I don't want the temptation to cash out and be stupid with the money to be available. I'm not funding anyone's business ideas. People who get such tend to screw it up. Prove you can run a business and then I might invest. I would be very keen on working to help trans people, especially the young and the poor or otherwise disadvantaged. In general, doing things to help people escape from the poverty traps that imprison them.
I once had a terrible idea about building a flying sphere out of thousands of jetpacks, which get around the general explosiveness of the standard jetpack design by 1: using a big enough sphere that the jetpacks are all far away from the cockpit, and 2: being massively redundant, so that as jetpacks explode there are other jetpacks available to come online to replace the exploded ones. I don't actually remember why jetpacks were assumed to be inherently unstable, actually. That may have started as an objection by someone else to the "sphere of jetpacks" idea. Anyway, the whole thing started as part of a "What would you do with $100 million", perhaps back the last time when some large lottery had a positive expected net gain.
I'd consult with my parents and brother on how to ensure a good investment and a savings accounts. First thing. Probably hire someone to advice me on taxes and investments in an international scale (hey my great uncle four times removed probably knows someone and if not my friend P probably will know someone). Tell as few people as possible. My goals outside of "ok let's be smart about money" would be buying nice properties or houses for renting, and a house for my parents. I'd pay for a maid to help my uncle look after my grandma. I'd buy my aunt a new car and probably quietly see what the people in my family need to be set for life. I'd pay for my brothers college. I would donate a lot to my college - maybe I could fulfill my dream of donation a nice proper bell for the rolling of times and ask that they ocasionally play Hedwigs theme on it. I'd ask my dad to help me find out the best charities in various areas to donate. I'd send people gifts and try making a safe house for a bunch of people. I'd make sure my parents have savings for retirement. I'd start the process of getting my brother a citizenship since he could now be my financial dependent. I would probably do stuff under a different name so people wouldn't hassle me for money. I would pay for my cousins education abroad. I would probably buy some new clothes too tbh I really want to feel more comfortable but since I wouldn't be looking for expensive stuff... I'd visit my friends around the world. I'd be able to work on the field as a volunteer without worrying about paying for it so I could get the experience I want in my career. I would try and create a suicide hotline in Bolivia so people like my cousin have somewhere to turn when the brain warps things so they can't ask people they love for help. I'd pay for our previous maid's health insurance she should get better care. I'd tell her son my age that I'd give him a stipend to support his daughter on the condition of his studying. Fuck man, I'd sponsor people. I'd never live the life of my great uncle, with the thousand dollar birthday party and four houses in the country, I don't really want for anything in my life. We'd save money since a bought house wouldn't be the constant rent we pay. Heck my mom would be able to take a break and it would be easier for the family to move and have a home for my parents retirement in the US and everything. Just man. If I could set it up so it kept making money through savings and investments... I could help grassroots efforts. I would buy a new tablet, oh my gosh a cintiq *•*
