I wonder if Eric is single. You just might be future ex-husband material.

Seriously, if I were to play the lottery and then win that amount of money the last thing you'd hear from me was the telephone going 'click' just after I made the short resignation speech:"I quit" and personally, I'd even debate making the call.

Unfortunately, if history holds true to form, most, if not all of these winners will be right back where they started in a few years, after one hell of a ride ...

Well, I usually hate anyobody who wins the lottery and isn't me, but the mix of people is kind of interesting, and there's certainly some feel good stories in there. I can only imagine how awful a job it is to be a sanitation guy at a meat processing plant.

I'm happy for them. Someone deserves it :)

Someone I used to work with won a modest lottery jackpot. Three days later a fax came in that was a picture of her sitting at a beach, holding a Corona and waving. The second page said, "I hereby tender my resignation, have a good life."

Hmmm. $15.5 million is a lot less than $360 million. I suppose if you locked it up in CDs, you'd hopefully get by on the passive income. No one ever takes the annuity. The lump sum option throws away 60%. The Feds take another 60% Dumb, dumb, dumb.

No one ever takes the annuity.

Not if they have sound financial advice, they don't. It's a far better deal to create your own.

BTW, John S, you did your math wrong. After taxes, the 8 are splitting about 34% of the total annuity payout. There's no way you can take 60% off the table, and another 60% again, and get to that figure.

The proper math is this. The lump sum is 177.3 million, which is about 48.5% of the total annuity payout of $365 million. Thus, going with the lump sum takes 51.5% off the table---but that's not accurate either, because the net present value of a $365 million payout over 30 years is FAR less than $365 million in today's dollars.

The government takes another 30%, not 60%, off the top of that. But they take a healthy chunk in either case.

The annuity option basically gives you a 6% return on the $177.10 million lump sum, for $365 million in total payments. You can do better than 6% without taking much risk.

This was one time that I didn't hate the winners just because they won and I didn't. All those guys were pretty cool. That Eric guy was pretty freaking funny too. He should do a press tour.

My favorite lottery story is the one about a guy who matched up 6 numbers on his ticket for a 6 million dollar jackpot, then went to his place of work in a celebratory frame of mind, mooned his boss, said "FU" to all, etc., then went down to the lottery office and turned in his winning ticket, for which he was given... 600 dollars. Seems he had misread his ticket and had only matched 5, not 6. Oops.

Seems he had misread his ticket and had only matched 5, not 6. Oops.

So then he sued the lottery. Right? ;)

Are you all aware that there are companies that go around a buy up the tickets of lotto winners, and give them an up-front lump sum. The companies then take the revenue stream from the tickets, invest it in the capital markets, and come out way ahead. The big competition for these firms, of course, is to get to the winners first. They basically securitize the payment stream, dump a lesser amount on the winner, and then laugh laugh laugh.

I recall a New York Times article years ago that followed the lives of a many lotto winners. Nearly every one of them ended up broke, addicted, dead or all three. The only person who seemed to have survived made a call to his lawyer and financial advisor before he called the lottery folks. He set up an investment plan and tax structure before cashing in. Of course, most people just take the money and blow it all within a few years.

I recall a New York Times article years ago that followed the lives of a many lotto winners. Nearly every one of them ended up broke, addicted, dead or all three.

This points out the unfortunate fact that most people just don't know how to handle money.

An interesting site I found while researching this online is:

http://suddenmoney.com

which claims to offers financial advice and services to those who have inherited a big wad, or sold a business for a big wad, or won a big wad playing the lottery, and etc.