I played 24 as the Mega because it's a runway number at Islip.

I get my money back to play again on Friday.

$476 Million must be a record.

$540 Million as of this morning... save your money, folks. The winner is posting this message!

A bunch of us got tickets at my job. We did it once before I think last year. Expecting NOTHING. I never play lotto, figure it's a waste of time/money but I chipped in a buck for the team

Irish - we did the same thing here @ work. If we win, there will only be 6 people who have to come to work on Monday morning! We always pool the money when a big jackpot is at stake so we will see...

That amount of money is obscene. I can't even IMAGINE winning it.

Given the number of tickets being sold, one can just about GUARANTEE that someone will win tonight's drawing. More likely there will be multiple winners. Still, $540 million divided by 7, 8, 9 winners is still pretty damned good!

Okay - they just had the director of the Illinois Lottery on WGN radio. He gave some round figures on this... Based upon the current $540 million jackpot, if you take a lump sum you will win around $389 million. If you get a smart tax lawyer/accountant (sound professional advice) you will end up with about $277 million after taxes. The odds of winning are 176 million to one! He also said that after work today - Fridays are usually pay days and government checks are cut on the 15th & 30th - the amount could go up even more obscene! Good luck to everybody!

When any lottery gets around $100 million, several of my students and I go in together to play it.

The grand prize has now gone up to $640 million!

Hold it! Hold it? I see my name written all OVER that ticket. I can buy & sell everyone!!!! I'll rule the world


Then I woke up.


TIS

D'oh!! Go back to sleep, get back into the dream.... you were just at the point of giving me $50 million.

Aye Carumba!

Don't have a cow, man.

Man, I'd be totally happy with a very small fraction of that amount. Math's not my strong point, but heck split it 100 ways is fine with me. I'm not picky with that kind of cash.



TIS

This is just crazy. Everybody is feeling the fever! It is unbelievable just thinking about what to do if you won that kind of money. I would like to just dream for a moment...

That's the whole attraction of a prize this big. But really, what could you buy?? I can't imagine having someone hand me $300 million. I'd go crazy and buy a really nice house, a few cars, some tv and video stuff, new appliances, new clothes ... you get the point. I'd be surprised if I spent $25 million doing all that. That leaves a WHOLE LOT OF MONEY left over to spend.

I agree, SC. To be honest, it scares me a bit. That much money is frightening. I don't have any bags of bird seed big enough to hide all that cash! I think I would honestly be afraid for my loved one's safety and wellness as that kind of attention seems to bring out a lot of nuttiness in people... especially family!

IF I won that kind of money I's share it will my entire family and children/grandchildren. I'd STILL have more than I'd know what to do with. Then, I'd arrange for the biggest BB Bash you could imagine..... In Sicily maybe How cool would that be? Hell, maybe I'd buy Sicily. Ok, back to earth.


Can you even imagine how many people would be coming out of the woodwork once they found out you were filfthy rich trying to scam you? You'd have all kinds of "new" best friends. LOL



TIS

Actually, that's what I'd look forward to. I'd love to have someone from my past ask me for some money. I'd love to tell them to go fuck themselves and ask where they were when I needed money.

Bring 'em on!

Call me crazy, but I'd rather win a much more manageable sum, say around $5 million, than $500 million. This way I can live a comfortable normal life under the radar for the rest of my life, buy just about anything I want, and still share a little bit with my closest friends and family. Winning too much money changes you life forever, and not all in a positive way. You'll never have privacy again, and every person that you've ever known will be looking for you, for a handout. ..I actually have a friend at work whose mother hit the "Pick 6" for around $20 million. She split it with him and his siblings. After taxes, he gets around $176K a year. I believe that is for 20 years.

I'd rather hit tomorrow night's Powerball for "only" sixty million. You wouldn't even make the papers, because the Mega winner would take up all the headlines .

Spoken like true war time consiglieri! Well done, PB!

Actually, we talked about what we'd do. TIS, like you, Sicily was way up on the list. Also, when my husband and I were in Florida, we took a walk and passed a house that was for sale. It was very pretty, right on the Intracoastal. We checked it out on the web, and the asking is $2.9 million. That house would definitely be high up on the purchase list.

We would put a few million away for each of the kids and our nieces and nephews. Give some to charity (hospice was high up on the list), buy my daughter the artist a gallery, and we would still have a ridiculous amount left over. LOL

Crazy to win something that big. You would have to immediately hide or change your identity. Every charity and psuedo-charity would be after you, not to mention your everyday scam artist and long lost family member.

First I would split the money with my wife and tell her that I would see her next year. I would walk around the world; except of course the ocean and creepy places like Somalia or Uzebekakibeckistan. Then I would buy a new Martin guitar, top of the line mountain bike and then cycle around the world on the roads I didn't walk. Then, I'd hang out in NYC for awhile, go to dinner with SC, jet over to Ca to see TIS, and oh yeah visit Geoff in Bob's River....I mean Toms River...go see pizzaman in the Bronx,.....have a brew with Yogi in New Castle...a nice coffee with Afs in Iran...chat about those GF films with TB in Arizona......Don Cardi and I would eat some Staten Island pizza and invite Just Lou along to tell us why he is so good at picking winners......visit any of those loons in the upper midwest like Lilo, Mark, Goombag....and oh, yeah....Klydon and I would have a pitcher of Yuengling and a pizza at Sabatinis. And I would probably find the rest of you....like SB having dinner at Marcellos...or ....

Then you flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun

How cool would that be?

TIS

MC, With that kind of money, we wouldn't even have to split an appetizer, we could each have our own!

I would love to travel. I've always wanted to have Sacher Torte at the actual Hotel Sacher, dinner at The Connaught in London, drink a Bellini at Harry's Bar in Venice, an ice cream sundae at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, tea at The Plaza in NY...Hmmmmm, I'm noticing a pattern!

Winning Mega Millions numbers announced
CBS News
March 30, 2012


(CBS/AP) ATLANTA - The drawing for what could be the single biggest lottery payout the world has ever seen is finally here.

The numbers drawn Friday night in Atlanta were 2-4-23-38-46, Mega Ball 23.

A $640 million jackpot is up for grabs. Taken as a lump sum, it would amount to $462 million — or about $347 million after federal tax withholding. It will be a couple of hours for details on possible winners come out.

Before Friday night's drawing, lottery ticket lines swelled as the record Mega Millions jackpot grew to $640 million, thanks greatly to players who opened their wallets despite long odds of success. Across the country, Americans plunked down an estimated $1.5 billion on the longest of long shots: an infinitesimally small chance to win what could end up being the single biggest lottery payout the world has ever seen.

A cafe worker in Arizona reported selling $2,600 worth of tickets to one buyer, while a retired soldier in Wisconsin doubled his regular weekly ticket spending to $55. But each would have to put down millions more to guarantee winning what could be the biggest single lotto payout in the world.

"I feel like a fool throwing that kind of money away," said Jesse Carter, who spent the $55 and donated the last two tickets he bought at a Milwaukee store Friday to a charity. "But it's a chance you take in life, with anything you do."

Mega Millions: What to do if you win
Long odds for winning Mega Millions jackpot
When lottery pools go wrong

Laura Horsley, who does communications and marketing for a trade association, bought $20 worth of Quick Pick tickets at a downtown Washington, D.C., liquor store Friday. But Horsley, who said she won't buy a lottery ticket unless the jackpot tops $100 million, remained realistic.

"I don't actually think I'm going to win, and I don't believe in superstitions or numbers or anything like that," she said. "I just figured it's right around the corner. I'd be crazy not at least to give it a shot."

Thousands of players -- who converged on convenience stores in 42 states and Washington, D.C., where Mega Millions tickets are sold -- agreed.

Kelly Cripe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Lottery Commission, said that as of Tuesday, nationwide sales for the Mega Millions drawing totaled more than $839 million. Officials projected an additional $618.5 million in sales ahead of Friday's drawing, however, for a projected total sales figure of more than $1.46 billion.

"This is unprecedented," Cripe said Friday by e-mail.

Some Indiana players managed to get freebies, as Hoosier Lottery officials gave away one free Mega Millions ticket to each of the first 540 players at several outlets around the state Friday -- a plan announced before the jackpot grew by $100 million.

In Indianapolis, college student Chris Stewart said he showed up at the lottery's headquarters at 6:30 a.m. to be first in a line.

"I've never seen a jackpot like this before," said Stewart, who bought five additional tickets. "If I won -- I mean wow! I just don't know what I'd do. I'd really have to think what I could do with it."

The lines were out the door at Rosie's Den cafe in the rural northwestern Arizona community of White Hills, 72 miles southeast of Las Vegas and one of the closest points to Nevada -- which doesn't offer Mega Millions -- for buyers to get in the game.

Rosie's worker Christine Millim said it's been nonstop for four days.

"In one step I sold $2,600 worth so, that was one person," she said.

Mike Catalano, chairman of the mathematics department at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, S.D., concedes the math is clear: The more tickets you buy, the better chances you have of winning. Better long-shot chances, of course.

"You are about 50 times as likely to get struck by lightning as to win the lottery, based on the 90 people a year getting struck by lightning," Catalano said. "Of course, if you buy 50 tickets, you've equalized your chances of winning the jackpot with getting struck by lightning."

Based on other U.S. averages, you're about 8,000 times more likely to be murdered than to win the lottery, and about 20,000 times more likely to die in a car crash than hit the lucky numbers, Catalano said.

For David Kramer, a lawyer in Lincoln, Neb., buying his Mega Millions ticket wasn't about "the realistic opportunity to win."

"It's the fact that for three days, the daydreaming time about what I would do if I won is great entertainment and, frankly, a very nice release from a normal day," he said.

In Armen Keteyian's report for "CBS Evening News", the revenue from that jackpot pie is divided in three ways: About 60 percent goes to prize winners; 15 percent to retailers, marketing and operations; and 25 percent, or about $14 billion, goes back to the states for government services.

And while states earmark that money for education programs, state lotteries covered only a fraction of state education spending," according to a CBS News investigation.

Where does MegaMillions money go after the jackpot?
Is The Lottery Shortchanging Schools?

Everett Eahmer, 80, of St. Paul, Minn., said he's been playing the lottery "since the beginning."

"If I win, the first thing I'm going to do is buy a (Tim) Tebow football shirt, and I'm going to do the Tebow pose," said Eahmer, who bought five tickets Thursday. "I'm with him in honoring a higher power."

Lottery officials are happy to have Friday's record Mega Millions jackpot fueling ticket sales, but even they caution against overspending.

"When people ask me, I just tell them that the odds of a lottery game make it a game of fate," said Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Urbandale, Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association that oversees the Mega Millions, Powerball and other lotteries. "Just buy a ticket, sit back and see if fate points a finger at you for that day."

And what happens if you win? CBS MoneyWatch's Jill Schlesinger has some recommendations -- among them 1) Read the rules on the back of the lottery ticket and the lottery web site; 2) Assemble a team that would include interviewing attorneys and financial advisors; and 3) Allow yourself to spend a little money, but don't go crazy.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57407405/winning-mega-millions-numbers-announced/

With the Jackpot being so much would they give it too you all at once or in installments?

The ticket buyer must request how he/she wants the payment made when the ticket is bought.

At least one winning ticket was sold. Maryland is reporting one winner in Baltimore County. I'm not sure if all the other states have completed their audits yet.

Baltimore County.... home to our Beth. Good luck!!