If the odds are 1 in about $300,000,000 and the jackpot is $1,600,000,000 and the tickets cost $2 each then why couldn’t I just go buy $
300,000,000 tickets for $600,000,000 and pocket one billion dollars
In: 3
Odds don’t equal guaranteed results. Without looking up the specifics, if there were a set 300,000,000 number of possible combinations and you filled out 300,000,000 slips carefully selecting each possible combination, then yes you would win. However, the machine just spits out random numbers and it would be extremely unlikely to get every single possible combination (you’d get many duplicates).
If you take the cash option (as most do), IRS withholds 37% and you get the cash option value which is only $782,400,000 gross and therefore you get $492,912,000. So, you lose $108,000,000 by taking the cash option. This isn’t taking into account State Taxes, which means you lose even more money.
With the annuity option, IRS withholds 24% right away which puts you at $1,216,000,000. Then you pay state taxes. The problem here is that you don’t get it all at once, so you’d need to come up with most of the $600,000,000 to buy the lottery tickets from somewhere.
So yes, if you had Elon Musk money and could select every possible option, I *think* you could profit maybe $500,000,000 over your lifetime.
All this assumes you get the entire pot and nobody else wins (which splits the pot).
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