Half Billion Dollar Lottery

[KrazyHorse]

It'll end up being about 55% of that in nyc.

[PLATO]

Lottery now at $640 Million.

Another reason to love Tennessee.

[Dinner]

Oh, well. I guess my $640mm dream didn't come true. At least I am only out $1.

[Wezil]

I won.

[Lorizael]

You came all the way to Baltimore just to buy a lottery ticket?

[Wezil]

We have online ticket purchasing sites to get in on the action.

[Wezil]

Alright, you caught me. I didn't win.

Canadians recently off-put by the news they will now be working until 67 may find themselves salivating at the thought of a $540 million return on a $1 investment.

That $540 million is the jackpot at stake in a Mega Millions lottery in the U.S. — and it could go up.

The draw takes place Friday at 11 p.m., and has been modestly billed as the largest prize in the world. Ever.

Turns out we can play, too.

“We don’t discriminate,” said Mary Cassani, the administrative services manager at Vermont Lottery, one of 44 states that offer Mega Millions tickets. “People, they’ll email us and want to know, ‘Can Canadians win the lottery?’ Absolutely.”

All you have to do is match six winning numbers from two separate pools of numbers — five from 1 to 56, and one from 1 to 46.

By comparison, the largest lottery prize ever won in Canada was a paltry $54.3 million from a Lotto 6/49 jackpot on Oct. 26, 2005.

But one must be strategic. Some states are friendlier than others.

A gambling man — or woman — who feels he or she can tackle odds that read like the census count (odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot: approximately 1 in 175,711,536) would be better off heading to Pennsylvania.

Of four northern states surveyed, it’s the only one that doesn’t have state tax on lottery winnings — although there is a 25 to 30 per cent tax for out-of-country gamblers. Depending on how a Canadian chooses to collect his or her winnings, the 30 per cent tax would lower the prize to $380 million or so. (State residents must pay a 25 per cent federal tax.)

In other states, non-U.S. lottery players pay a 30 per cent federal tax as well as state taxes — for example, 8.82 per cent in New York, 7.2 per cent in Vermont and 4.35 per cent in Michigan. So for a Canadian in New York, the winnings could drop to a slender $329 million.

Lottery winnings are not taxable in Canada, unless they’re invested.

There are two options for collecting the Mega Millions jackpot: either a lump sum of approximately $390 million or an annuitized jackpot at almost $21 million a year for the next 26 years, which equals $540 million.

Some people take the lump sum, at less money, in order to invest it themselves and potentially make more in the long run, said Andi Brancato with Michigan Lottery.

She said players from Windsor, Sarnia and Sault Ste. Marie have made the trek to Michigan to buy lottery tickets. Some have won smaller prizes but never a jackpot.

What if a Canuck took the prize this time?

“Whenever we have a jackpot winner, everybody is disappointed,” said Brancato. “So I think people would experience the same kind of disappointment (if the winner was Canadian).

“But, you know, we’re selling a product and we would be happy to give somebody this prize money.”

Looks like we had to buy a ticket in person. Sadly the payoff wasn't high enough for that kind of grief.

[Tupac Shakur]

Canada raised the retirement age to 67? God, Ottawa is so much better at governing than Washington.

[Tupac Shakur]

Apparently Canada had an election last year and the Conservatives finally won a majority. Who knew?

[notyoueither]

You didn't hear the sound of Agathon's head exploding?

[Uncle Sparky]

Or my weeping and gnashing of teeth.

[SlowwHand]

Last year, my friend upgraded his GirlFriend 3.1 to GirlFriendPlus1.0 (marketing name: Fiancee1.0).

Recently he upgraded Fiancee1.0 to Wife1.0, and it's a memory hogger! It has taken all his space; and Wife1.0 must be running before he can do anything. Although he didn't ask for them, Wife1.0 came with Plug-Ins such as MotherInLaw and BrotherInLaw. These too slow down the system and cause a slow drain on the resources and well-being of the computer.

Some features I'd like to see in the upcoming GirlFriend4.0:

1. A "Don't remind me again" button.

2. Minimize button.

3. Shutdown feature - An install shield feature so that Girlfriend4.0 can be completely uninstalled if so desired (so you don't lose cache and other objects).

I tried running Girlfriend 2.0 with Girlfriend 1.0 still installed; they tried using the same I/O port and conflicted. Then I tried to uninstall Girlfriend 1.0, but it didn't have an uninstall program. I tried to uninstall it by hand, but it put files in my system directory.

Another thing that sucks--in all versions of Girlfriend that I've used is that it is totally "object orientated" and only supports hardware with gold plated contacts.

Bug warning
Wife 1.0 has an undocumented bug. If you try to install Mistress 1.1 before uninstalling Wife 1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.1 will refuse to install, claiming insufficient resources.

[Tupac Shakur]

What the **** did that post have to do with anything? I only read the first sentence and glanced at the rest, so maybe I missed some sort of connection to the topic at hand? I would wager not, but I'm trying to be optimistic.

[Aeson]

I think it means Sloww won the lottery. He's left a bot to autopost a feed of his spam folder so we won't miss him while he's away partying for the rest of his life...

[SlowwHand]

It means, the lottery is over,I didn't win, here's a joke. Figures Drake couldn't grasp it, considering he can't find his ass with both hands.