$200 Million Too Much? Sure Is!

[Rostum]

Sorry to get off topic, but I had a friend buy a sandwich for a bum and the bum threw it back in his face saying he wanted cash.

[Levian]

Or you can buy a water bottle to a bum and enter the lottery. I think maybe this is one of the cakes you can both have and eat.

[Jiro]

Enter the lottery. When/ If you win, buy the bum a lifetime worth of water. Better than just one bottle, isn't it?

[Momiji]

If I ever won such a ridiculous amount, I would pay off my college fees and tuition, buy a decent house and a good car (nothing too fancy), and buy everything my heart desires (which could not possibly put a dent in 200 million dollars, let alone one million). Then I'd set away some in case of medical emergencies/natural disasters. Never having to worry about gas prices would be very nice.

Then I'd pay off my family's debts and set some aside for my brother's college education. By this time, I may have spent a few million.

After that, I'd put around 50 million away, so when I die, my family will never have any financial hardships, as long as they aren't stupid with it.

I would spend the rest of my life giving the rest away to charites. No one person needs this much money. Ever. The needs of many by far outweigh the desires of one. I'd never be able to spend such a ridiculous amount of money even remotely wisely on my own.

I am not making any of this up. I've actually put a lot of thought into it, being approached with hypothetical situations like this before, and every day you see celebrities on TV with much more than $200 million on hand, and just wasting it on themselves for stupid things. No one needs a house that big. No one needs that many cars, and let's face it, you'd be hard-pressed to actually make a friend who doesn't view you as a walking ATM machine.

For those with attention deficiency disorders, here is a summarized snippet of the general ramblings for you to ponder over - I'd take care of all financial issues for the rest of my life, I'd buy myself a few nice things, I'd help my family, I'd set some aside for later days, so the rest of my family never has to worry about financial issues for the rest of their lives, and then I'd just give the rest of it away.

Wealth only leads to self-absorption and grandeur anyway.

EDIT: Hahaha, too long; didn't read wordfilters.

[Flying Mullet]

In regards to the payoff being higher than the odds, the Powerball jackpot's been over $300 million before and people have tried the strategy you're describing and failed. The problem is that you can't print tickets fast enough to come even close to generating tickets with all of the number combinations between powerball drawings.

If you're extremely fast at typing in numbers, I'll give you five seconds per ticket to punch in and print:
5 * 191331855 = 956659275 seconds
956659275 / 3600 = 265738.6875 hours
265738.6875 / 24 = 11072.4453125 days
11072.4453125 / 365 = 30.335466609589041095890410958904

So 30 years to print up all of the winning combinations.

At 5 seconds a ticket you could print up (I'll use Saturday to Wednesday for four days):
4 * 24 = 96 hours
96 * 3600 = 345600 seconds
345600 / 5 = 69120 tickets

Anyway, you get the picture.

[Rye]

Right at this moment?

Pay off college things. Buy a new car. Buy a small plane or a nice boat for traveling. Give a few million to my parents to buy them off to leave me alone and so I don't owe them anything. Give a few million to Huxley's Mom and Dan so that they can live comfortably and buy books and LARP for the rest of their lives and visit us. Buy a small island. Have a nice estate on it for me and Huxley with plenty of rooms for visiting friends. Have another estate for his Granny so that she's living comfortably and happily near us and she is safe. Live there with my true loved ones for the rest of my life. Buy a nice apartment in Manhattan to go to when I feel like seeing people and things.

The rest of the money will be used as seen fit so that any children will have the opportunity to do what they want, and for traveling around the world constantly. When it comes down to it, I just basically want to be left alone with people I love for the rest of my life.

Money doesn't buy you happiness, but it gets me the means to be with and have what makes me happy.

[rubah]

Arkansas doesn't have a lottery [yet]

[Levian]

I can't believe none of you would buy EoFF.

[Tavrobel]

I would buy EoFF at a discount and flip it for profit. This is turning out to be an awesome day for Dwight Schrute me.

Your lottery plan sucks, but so does most lottery plans, so I guess it comes out as a null vote. Ohh, and hell yes money buys me happiness. Does not money pay for the food I eat, or the DVDs I buy? Does not money pay for the friend that is a girl with whom I spend a great majority of my company? Plus, if you sniff it, it gives you a bit of a headache, but it makes you feel pretty good.

[Bunny]

Depending on what option you take when asking for your payment. The one-time payment is usually lower than the advertised lottery pay out, sometimes even as low as half before taxes are applied. I've read and heard from various sources that the US applies a 28% withholding tax to all winners of lottery prizes from any winners totally over $5,000. Also, the federal tax bracket can go as high as 39.6%. Because of all this, you'd get a fair amount lower than the advertised winnings, but still enough to live an nice leisurely life.

I would do some of the things mentioned in the original post but not all. I would not give to some charity nor would I give a set amount of money to any of my friends. Why? Because I don't feel that it is necessary and I am not a nice person. I would, however, do the following:

1. Buy a house and a car. Nothing too big or too fancy, a 3 bedroom would be fine. A car that gets me around would also suit my needs.

2. Quit my job. I don't need it anymore because jobs are for people who need to make a living, I don't. If my funds ever run out, I would be doing something seriously wrong.

3. Travel. I've always wanted to, so why not? I wouldn't do it in my own private jet, either. Unnecessary spending.

4. Buy Levian. He would be my pool boy and have to wear tight cutoff jean shorts and no shirt. Mmm.

[Heath]

I'd build my own version of EoFF but we'd be able to make social groups for everything, there'd be no Shinra-esque Cid's Knights getting in the way and there'd be an attack button.

I bought two lucky dips for the Euromillions draw tomorrow night which is £100m. I'd be happy if I won any prize at all, but I should imagine my time in university would involve significantly less worries about financies. I'd probably buy a 360, give a significant amount to certain charities and see about going on holiday over the summer to somewhere nice. If I had £100m, I'd keep perhaps £5m to live off for a while and put the rest into some high interest savings account or invest it in something. I'd still go to work and university. Learn to drive next summer as well and get myself a decent car. A car would be a luxury I'd like to have, definitely.

[scrumpleberry]

Am I the only person who'd be at all tempted to buy everything I've ever wanted ever? After that, there honestly would not be much left x)))))

[Bunny]

Am I the only person who'd be at all tempted to buy everything I've ever wanted ever? After that, there honestly would not be much left x)))))

I would. But I haven't ever wanted a lot, so it wouldn't cost that much.

[Roto13]

Seriously, the payoff is above the odds. Is that not enough incentive?

Not really. The odds of winning are still retardedly low, and even if you managed to buy a ticket with every possible combination of numbers, there's always that chance that someone else did the same thing, in which case you'd have to split the winnings and be out like a hundred million dollars.

If I spend my dollar on a chocolate bar, however, that's got about a hundred percent chance of being yummy. I pick the chocolate bar.

[rubah]

oh, and as for what i'd do with the earnings, I'd buy a hybrid diesel car, build my dream house and then set up a scholarship for someone at uofa to study whatever I feel like on a given year.