The Lotter – Online Lottery Tickets Agent »
If you happen to visit Las Vegas this week, you should know that Vegas online bookmakers suggest a nice alternative to the Powerball lottery – placing bets on whether the last Powerball number is odd or even. Both options cost exactly the same, but the alternative is certainly refreshing.
In the USA the following are the largest single lump sum payouts:
* Andrew J. Whittaker Jr. of West Virginia, won $314.9 million in the Powerball drawing of December 25, 2002. Opting as most large prize winners in the U.S. do for the lump sum, his after-tax prize was $114 million.
* Geraldine Williams from Lowell, Mass. is the largest single Mega Millions winner, at $294 million. The $168 million lump sum she opted for was reported as $117.6 million after taxes.
* Harold and Helen Lerner of New Jersey also claimed a higher after-tax lump sum than Whittaker in Mega Millions for the September 16, 2005 drawing, as New Jersey then had no state tax on lottery prizes. They chose to receive $156 million in cash instead of the $258 million face value. Then there is a 25 percent federal withholding tax[citation needed], which left them with around $117 million.
* The October 19, 2005 Powerball drawing won by nine members of the West and Chaney families of Medford, Oregon was for a larger annuity ($340 million) but a smaller lump sum than Whittaker’s.
* On February 22, 2008, Robert and Tayne Harris of Portal, Georgia claimed the only Mega Millions jackpot ticket, with an annuity value of $270 million (cash value $167 million) before taxes. After 25% percent federal withholding and 6% state withholding, they were left with around $115 million.
Back down under in OZ, 74-year-old won an amazing $50 million lottery jackpot. BRian Caswell a keen amateur gardener said that he’d likely spend part of his jackpot prize employing a gardening expert to teach him how to grow better carrots.
Mr Caswell told reporters that for years depsite his success in many other garden vedge that he’s just always struggled with carrots. Brian spends hours every day outside at his prize-winning allotment. Together with his wife their retirement has been filled with endless enjoyable days maintaining the patch with Joan, 71 near their home in Halliwell.
“I’ve been trying to grow carrots ever since I’ve been on that allotment and I’ve never had any success,” he said. He said the couple had decided to go public with the news of their huge win in last Friday’s Euromillion draw on the advice of lottery operator Camelot.
“How could you keep that secret?” he said. “The answer is you can’t.” His wife said she was still adjusting to her sudden wealth, which saw the couple’s win splashed on the front of the Sun and the Daily Mirror newspapers.
“What I’m going to do now is bring a professional in and say, ‘Right, sort that out’.”
A lovely story straight out of America. When a free Fantasy 5 lottery ticket converted into a $1,298,332 jackpot win for a man in Georgia. Robert Patterson Jr. won the prize with a free ticket matching the required 5 winning numbers in the July 17 Fantasy 5 drawing.
“It was on a free ticket, and I think that’s probably important for everyone to know,” said Robert, who won the jackpot. By matching two of five numbers in a previous Fantasy 5 draw his prize was a free ticket for the next coming lottery draw. Robert then used a lottery checker to review the results from his free ticket and was shocked and excited to discover he’s won the jackpot.
“I just looked at it and said, ‘I’m going to travel,’ ” he explained. “I don’t know where yet but probably Europe and some islands. It is exciting, the possibilities.”
More budgeting tips from a guest writer:
Never dip into your savings in the hope of winning the lottery. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. Spending your life savings won’t help you if you lose it all. Only spend what you can afford to lose.
When you buy one lottery ticket, your odds of winning go from zero to one-in-eighteen million or so. When you buy two lottery tickets, your odds of winning go from one-in-eighteen million to two-in-eighteen million. The numbers improve, but you need to buy literally thousands to see a significant increase in your chances.
By all means, get in the game. But remember that buying a hundred tickets per week doesn’t increase your odds of winning that much. Bear in mind the more tickets you buy the more chance your sharing your list of numbers with someone else.
So, in short, the important budgeting tip here, is spend only what you can afford to spend and only on the numbers you really want to play.
