http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/12/news/cu … t-billion/

Dang
Just about everyone I know is purchasing a ticket or two...

I've heard it said that the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math, and I can't disagree.  I do know some people play lotto/scratch tickets for fun instead of just the low odds of winning, but I never considered gambling to be fun.

I've never bought a lottery ticket before, until yesterday. I was in a gas station buying some energy drinks and I told the clerk that it's above a billion, so I might as well give it a shot. The lady behind me said she's never played the lottery either and she bought some. Even one of my uncles, that heartily despises the lottery (he's a math teacher), told me that if it surpasses $2 billion, then he'll buy a ticket. It seems that everyone has a breaking point. It's $1 billion for me, $2 billion for my uncle. What's your breaking point?

Same here. First time for everything. I have nothing against gambling, I think people should just be aware that the chances are very very small and this should be viewed as entertainment. I read stories of people dropping $5000 on tickets... FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS
Seriously, I find that totally asinine. If you want to drop a few dollars fine, but why spend so much money that you're almost certainly going to lose? Then again, to each their own. Myself, I suppose since it reached a billion dollars I figured why not? Statistically speaking there is a return investment and once it reaches a certain point it's actually positive. Sounds strange since almost everyone loses their money, but there it is. Your ROI is positive for this jackpot

This kind of reminds me off my one boss at work.

In the training room they have pictures of all the members of management and there's a little about each of them like their hobbies and what not.

On my boss's she listed one of her hobbies as "gambling." I actually like her and get along with her extremely well... but I can't help but feel I'd keep that one to myself given people may have negative preconceptions about listing that as a hobby.

Maybe she plays poker? Poker definitely takes skill, it's not merely luck.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-us-s … 19476.html

"William Burke drove 45 minutes Monday from his home in Henderson, Nevada, to buy tickets in Nipton, California. Then he waited three hours to spend $20 on 10 tickets at a store that is among the nation's busiest lottery retailers."

Sheesh... waste of time in my opinion. Chances are so small, but I guess if you've got nothing better to do...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/ … ame-clout/

"I’ve mostly been thinking about are video games, and just how much hardware and software you could buy with that much cash."

I think this is mostly tongue in cheek... at least I hope so.

That's true, but from what she's told me I think she likes things like the slots and stuff.

Again, her listing that as a hobby doesn't bother me personally... but if it were me I guess I'd refrain from listing that because of the negative connotations and it being a place of work. However, I probably care what others think of me at times so it's more of a personal hang up.

Another thing is it just seems kind of odd reading other managers info where you read things like "spending time with my grand-kids" and then get a very stark difference in going from that to "gambling."

That can be true, but it depends on some extent on how many other people are playing. For example, if the odds against winning are 300 million to 1,  then the odds of at least one person winning are roughly 63% if there are 300 million tickets sold. But there is a decent chance that 2 people will win it, which cuts the jackpot for each of them in half, or 3 people each winning 1/3 of the jackpot, and so on. While the odds for a single winner goes up as more tickets are sold, so do the odds of multiple winners.

Combine this with the fact that the payment is in the form of an annuity, with a much smaller present value if you elect to take the cash up front, and it would take a long time for the ROI to be positive. I've read that even with a $1.5 billion jackpot, the expected present value of a $2 ticket is only $1.32 given the number of people playing.