Mega Millions jackpot jumps to $550 million after nobody wins big prize

[Omaha Steve]

Source: US News

By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC News

The Mega Millions jackpot soared to $550 million -- the fourth-biggest prize ever -- early Saturday after no winning ticket was sold.

Heavy sales had boosted the prize to $425 million for Friday's drawing, but even with all those tickets sold, nobody picked the winning numbers: 19, 24, 26, 27, 70, plus the Mega Ball number 12.

California Lottery spokesman Mike Bond confirmed that the prize for Tuesday's drawing would be $550 million.

That's Mega Millions' second-largest jackpot ever, trailing a $656 million jackpot in March 2012 -- and the fourth-largest lottery jackpot in U.S. history.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/13/21896102-mega-millions-jackpot-jumps-to-550-million-after-nobody-wins-big-prize

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Scott Olson / Getty Images

A clerk sells Mega Millions lottery tickets at a convenience store in Chicago on Friday.

[Loudly]

1. They recently worsened the odds against winning this game.

For the express purpose of building up more super jackpots.

[yeoman6987]

44. This is sad

Yes we are a free country and I love it. However, they are targeting the poor who will go out and spend way more than rich people or even middle class. It is awful that they have the lottery. I know it is exciting and I am not for a ban, but it is just sad to see people spending money on something that will not happen and could be spent on other things. Yes I am for the free country but I just am uncomfortable with some who buy tickets that probably shouldn't.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

2. Lottery: A tax on simple people bad at simple math

[Douglas Carpenter]

3. well sure - normally the chance might be 10 zectillion to one against winning -but if God wants you

to win - the chances are 100%

[tomm2thumbs]

9. was that the hand of god helping out with a lottery commercial? hooo boy

that must've cost a pretty penny to get his endorsement!

[Cirque du So-What]

17. God & the lottery

That's all most people have nowadays when it comes to hoping for a better life. As an oddsmaker, however, I give winning the lottery the edge over divine intervention.

[Douglas Carpenter]

21. winning the lottery versus divine intervention

Well, they are not mutually exclusive concepts you know.

[ElboRuum]

7. And here we go...

It's a nanoscopically wee chance for a huge payout. Everyone knows it. And you don't have to be a math whiz to see that.

AND YET. People keep doing it. Why? Because competence at math, of all things, has precisely zero to do with it. Your failure to see what actually DOES have something to do with it is why every thread like this contains at least one "hurr hurr people bad at math" post repeating the same old tired quote. Congratulations on continuing the tradition of haughty intellectual superiority at DU. I'm sure that our contempt for the predilections of the "simple" isn't a problem.

[shireen]

11. Thank you. I'm sick of hearing it too.

Most people know the odds. Why do it? Desperation. Sometimes we need to have some glimmer of hope, even if we rationally know the odds are highly stacked against us. It's really that simple. Not a rational choice, an emotional reaction to being trapped in a life we can't control.

[Bibliovore]

12. An old friend of mine jokingly called it "investment diversification"

She said, "You know, you're supposed to diversify your investments, putting some money into low-risk, low-yield options and some into higher-risk, higher-yield options. The lottery is very high yield, very high risk." And that's how she explained buying one lottery ticket each week.

[GreenPartyVoter]

31. +1

[Nanjing to Seoul]

15. people keep doing the pointless: the true mark of insanity and stupidity.

[The_Commonist]

22. Well, I'll bet you're a lot of fun at parties!

Oh. You don't get invited to any parties.
Color me surprised!

[Nanjing to Seoul]

26. wow. what a rude, classless and totally pointless personal attack.

[The_Commonist]

45. And yet calling people stupid and insane is classy?

I hope you have a nice day too!

[Nanjing to Seoul]

46. When people piss their money way down the lottery toilet, yes

And I hope you have one too. I had a great one. Now, I'm heading to sleep.

[magical thyme]

51. there's going to be one or a few people out there for whom it won't be pointless to buy a ticket

and there is no unwritten law that only 1%ers can win a lottery.

It's the only chance some people have. Personally, I very rarely buy tickets, but occasionally do for the fun of dreaming and I figure 1 chance in a bazillion is still one more chance than 0 chances in a bazillion. When it's this big, I think about all the good a half billion dollars could do, Goddesses and/or Noodly Appendage Willing. a nice, quick high without the fat or carbs of a chocolate bar.

[ElboRuum]

52. And you'd be wrong.

It's never classy. Says more about your character than you know.

[ElboRuum]

53. To a select few...

...it wasn't pointless.

Just curious. Does your curmudgeonly nature garner you any social capital, or is it just one big downward spiral of contempt?

[Nanjing to Seoul]

55. It suits me well. I have a large group of friends, a beautiful wife, an amazing career

and travel the world.

I would say my dour, cynical and misanthropic ways garnered me alot. It keeps the riff-raff away.

[ElboRuum]

68. Odd...

Seems like you've got the world wrapped around your little finger, kudos to you... however... one thing doesn't add up.

Why would a person so interested in "keeping the riff-raff away", come to a place where the "riff-raff" are so plentiful? Hmm, maybe being dour, cynical, and misanthropic didn't get you everything.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

69. Wow. . .logical leap, assuming my life revolves around a website I frequent.

I also go to Yahoo Sports and play World of Warcraft.

And are you saying DU is filled with riff-raff? Because I never did.

Dismissed.

And I would say I have a wonderful life.

[ElboRuum]

73. DU is populated with all sorts.

"Riff-raff" are plentiful among us. You know, common folk? Funny, I never saw being "common" as a sin, but if you are going to use the pejorative "riff-raff" I can only assume you do. I never said you said DU is filled with "riff-raff", I only remarked it odd that a person of your inimitable refinement might feel a bit "soiled" from coming to a place where the "riff-raff" have been known to congregate.

Perhaps you should spend more time in WoW leveling up your characters instead of wading knee deep in this wretched hive of scum and villainy, because at least in a fantasy realm you can be alone in indulging in your infantile delusions of superiority to the rest of us serfs, peasants, and peons.

Be well, Palpatine, and good luck with that whole "Death Star" thing. It should be a real crowd-pleaser, you irrepressible funster, you.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

75. again, personal attacks. i'll stop this and take my coffee on the porch

since you're already on the cross.

[ElboRuum]

76. Funny, I thought I was "dismissed".

Guess I still had your attention after all.



Personal attacks? Hardly, you, with your litany of personal achievements, are the one making this personal, are you not? You come in here with your pompous attitude and casually shit on people who don't share your enlightened view. Then, here, instead of walking away, as you indicated in your post previous, you decided that my counter could not be allowed to stand, and that you would take one more opportunity to get in the last word. Now here you are again saying you will "stop this". Will you?

Maybe you do have the sense to put a stop to it, and maybe admit, if only quietly and to yourself, that your attitude has rankled a few and that, yes, maybe the best move would simply be to quit talking. But given the arrogance with which you've comported yourself to this point, I seriously doubt that you will truly "stop this". Time will tell, I suppose.

Pardon me, I have to get back up on my cross now. Good coffee, by the way.

[JackRiddler]

30. Oh, thanks for this comment and...

I feel the same way about the inevitable "bad at math" comment, which actually exposes the speaker as (1) "unable to understand shit about how other humans actually work" and (2) "someone who needs to announce personal superiority despite presenting a very narrow and inaccurate basis for it."

Thanks for saying it in about 400 less words than it took me in Post #28:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=672867

[Nanjing to Seoul]

32. again, nice baseless, classless and pointless attack.

[JackRiddler]

33. So sad that you're unwilling to learn.

Consider how wrong-headed your initial comment was. Of course it's indicative of a much broader attitude that you may not normally exemplify personally, but is widespread in the world.

Try to be serious: Is the lottery popular because those people playing it are bad at math? Is that your final answer?

[Nanjing to Seoul]

35. No, it is popular the same way religion is popular.

To give false hope.

Unwilling to learn. Listen, junior. . .nah, never mind. I have more important things to do, like spend time with my wife.

[kentauros]

41. And I would say it's the critics that are the ones bad at math.

They continue to state that it's pointless to play. You'll just lose. Tax on stupidity. Et cetera. And that is where they are making their mathematical mistake. They are assuming that if you play you will lose. In other words, they are stating that an astronomically small chance of winning is exactly the same as not winning at all. Every math course I've ever taken (up to Limits in college calculus) tells us that there's a huge difference between "slim chance" and "no chance."

Also, if there was truly never any possible chance at ever winning these "games of chance", then people would not play, and the lotteries would cease to exist. Perhaps that's the ploy of the critics, to try and convince people that the odds stated on their tickets are completely false and that the "real" chances are a big fat zero.

Well, I'd say "good luck with that" but they'd just counter my suggestion with another statement that there is zero chance of that happening

[CTyankee]

71. I will buy one ticket for this lottery, if I remember to do so. I so rarely buy a lottery ticket it'

easy to lose track of what the pot is up to.

When I was working I remember so many people saying "I can't ever retire because I haven't saved enough for retirement. I'll have to win the lottery..." It's sad that winning the lottery is so many people's "retirement plan."

[ElboRuum]

74. It's no one's retirement plan...

...it's a statement of sad acceptance of the fact that the only way for people who have the temerity to work for a living to retire, these days, seems to need to come in the form of windfall. So long as wages do not keep up with price, the ability to retire is a temporary illusion brought about by forgetting that in 20 years, everything will double except the amount in your savings.

[CTyankee]

77. Of course. But I used to hear it all the time, even back before I retired 10 years ago...

[Cirque du So-What]

18. Regardless

the odds of winning the lottery are infinity-to-one without purchasing a ticket.

[grantcart]

23. OK now I am going to buy $ 10 worth.

If I win it will make for a classic thread on epistomology and objective truth!!.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

25. when you lose, i promise not to gloat.

[joshcryer]

42. If you win please give me $10 million.

[JackRiddler]

28. Smugness: A cheap and false sense of superiority.

Nanjing to Seoul says:

"Lottery: A tax on simple people bad at simple math"

Wow, that is so smart. You must be the smartest primate on your block! What else are you going to tell us, that wanking off to images of Celebrity Sex Symbol No. 29 is not the same as going out with her?

People gamble for the emotional charge. They play the big jackpot games as a means of allowing themselves some hours of fantasy about what they'll do when they're rich. (For the vast majority of those playing, the chances of this with a ticket are greater than zero, as opposed to definite zero. That's all that matters for empowering the fantasy.)

All this bespeaks common emotional needs in an alienated environment. States and other gambling sponsors take advantage of these emotional drives in the most disgusting fashion.

So that people play has little to do with exceptional stupidity or ignorance of math. Most people understand the odds. Many inveterate gamblers are immersed in odds and mathematically talented, and getting a couple of lottery tickets is just an added kick to the overall mix.

What you are showing with your nerdy obviousness is your own failure to understand the emotions and psychology underlying gambling.

There is a group of people immune to the desire to gamble (which for most is rooted in hormonal and neurological realities). Some of them make a point of announcing how well they understand the math, and in my observation such people tend to be middle class and liquid. When they make a smug but ignorant comment like yours, they are fulfilling an emotional need, just a different one: to feel superior to the blotto masses.

[joshcryer]

43. The lottery is a regressive tax on the poor.

If you don't recognize that, it's a shame.

[JackRiddler]

47. Stating the superfluous causes cancer.

Did I in any way imply otherwise? Don't you have anything better to do than to waste everyone's time with this kind of pedanticism? Actually, it fits the topic: Say something painfully obvious and off-point and pretend it makes you smart. If I say Mars is red, I'm sure you'll reliably arrive to say, "Yes, but crackers make crumbs, why are you ignoring that?"

[joshcryer]

58. Aww, nah, you just minimized it as emotional fantasy playing around.

Rather than acknowledging that it is a very toxic thing in the long run.

[joshcryer]

57. "emotions and psychology" are due to impoverishment and desparation

Last edited Mon Dec 16, 2013, 04:14 AM - Edit history (1)

They get "a couple of lottery tickets" because they want to. They are cajoled into getting it because the media sells it, the stores have signs with big dollar signs, they hype it up.

"the poor are still the leading patron of the lottery and even the people who were made to feel poor buy lotteries. The legalization of gambling has seen a significant increase of young people gambling, particularly in lotteries, and the best predictor of their lottery gambling is their parents’ lottery participation"

Those in the lowest fifth in terms of socioeconomic status (SES) had the “highest rate of lottery gambling (61%) and the highest mean level of days gambled in the past year (26.1 days).”

"increased levels of lottery play are linked with certain subgroups in the U.S. population — males, blacks, Native Americans, and those who live in disadvantaged neighborhoods."

See more at: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/personal-finance/research-review-lotteries-demographics

I am pointing this out because you spent so much time insulting the motivations of people who are against gambling and narrowing down the reason the poor gamble as "emotional charge" and "allowing themselves some hours of fantasy about what they'll do when they're rich."

Aww, it doesn't hurt to play, right? No, of course not, the vast majority who only play when it's big and only spend a buck or two, no, it won't hurt. It's not a big deal.

The people who spend hundreds of dollars when it gets that big, it's going to hurt. The people who play religiously it's definitely hurting.

edit: just to be clear the Gambler's fallacy is a deeply rooted cognitive bias, it's just that the poor are more exploited by it, in a zero sum game that pits classes against one another and causes the impoverished class to be manipulated more.

[JackRiddler]

59. As I'm fine with the underlying ideas...

And constantly expound on the very same in my frequent tirades against state-sponsored gambling, especially the lottery and scratch off games, there's no need to put this as an attack on me.

You are simply wrong here: I spend no "time insulting the motivations of people who are against gambling."

The "don't know math" meme is in fact the opposite of being against gambling. It blames the gamblers for being stupid, rather than the state for aggressively pushing the product on them constantly, taking advantage of their emotional states -- which are due to alienation, largely a product of economic circumstance, and indeed often desperation. As I said!

"Don't know math" is analogous to blame-the-poor arguments, it essentializes the problem as one of inherent personal qualities (stupidity).

So there's a reason to go on about that and speak of the real personal psychology and drives exploited by the gambling machinery.

[joshcryer]

62. But you insult "smugness" in critics.

Maybe the critics are in the minority, poor or rich alike, who understand the Gambler's fallacy?

The Gambler's fallacy goes beyond ones own intuition or cognitive ability, indeed, it directly notes ones biases to be persuaded by numbers which aren't in their favor. This disproportionately affects the poor or people convinced they're poorer than they are, in such a way as to make them empty their wallets to play the game.

It's not about some one off fantasy, it's about a regular investment.

Hint: in less than 6 hours my brother is about to put his newborn daughters fucking formula money into lottery tickets to win this fucking bullshit, after repeated explanations as to the fact that he could die of suffocation, be hit by a car walking down the street, or being hit by lightning. He's one of the people who, while I would not say is stupid, is biased by the Gambler's fallacy. Oh, I gave him $5 to give me a ticket, too (we're in Nevada he has to drive out of state). If I win you get a million dollars. If only because you believe it is emotional (as opposed to economic / class based) to buy into highly improbable economic events.

You appear to dismiss the state taking advantage of economic desperation as you suggest it is merely people partaking in fantasy about how they might spend monies they will, most certainly, never see.

edit: strike that, you'll get $10 million if I win on $5 of random quick picks, that's how much I consider this a joke of epic proportions. A pure joke. I'm more likely to be buying my nieces formula for the next two weeks because my brother isn't thinking about his family and will be in the negative for the next couple of weeks. All because "emotional fantasy" that I, the smug asshole, am not considering (how about the asshole not buying his own daughter formula to gamble? Oh, no, poor guy, he has to fulfill his emotional reasons to gamble).

[JackRiddler]

64. Sigh.

Most of the underlying observation about the lottery is true. None of it applies to me or anything I said.

The "smugness" I decry (not insult) was an inevitable blame-the-victim comment above, making fun of people who don't know math, as though this is what motivates them.

(Now begin cycle again and repeat the entire conversation in your own mind, without me, projecting ideas on me that I don't actually say. Without me, okay? Bye!)

[joshcryer]

65. There is no victim blaming here.

Merely observation of economic facts. If anything you are the one suggesting the victim accept their economic status by fantasizing and enjoying that fantasy of prospering.

It's essentially, "But they enjoy fantasizing about becoming rich, so no harm done!"

[JackRiddler]

66. Stop attempting to attribute your words to me.

Please do not employ quotation marks around comments I did not make, that you insinuate are somehow my true meaning even though they are contrary to what I said.

Go away!

[joshcryer]

67. It's trivially inferred.

Justify gambling to someone else please.

[egold2604]

5. Now remember, you can't lose if you don't play.

[tomm2thumbs]

10. heh heh heh -- I'm using that on my mother! thanks

(she just might like the logici)

[Cirque du So-What]

19. Funny

but I can still afford an occasional buck to indulge in a harmless fantasy. Oh, BTW, I am SO stealing that line!

[hadrons]

6. Damn, the clerk swore he would sell me the winner....

truth be told, if you could spare a buck or two, it would be foolish not to play a couple of games. The only thing worse than a million-to-one is a million-to-none

[Jefferson23]

8. Someone will win, and that win puts them in a position to do a lot of good.

I hope whoever wins, does something worthwhile..that is generational money.

[JackRiddler]

34. Kind of a weird justification for it don't you think?

Someone will (eventually) win and, given the population, most likely they will be a fat consumer type who throws the money around like crazy. This will be too much to blow, however, so it will do good... for her-his family for generations. What "lot of good" is that for the rest of us? It's an absurd idea, the odds of it going to someone who will really "do good" for it beyond a selfish, tribal basis are minuscule. (Taking your idea seriously, they should have the players vote on who should win on the basis of their proposals for how to spend it.)

[Jefferson23]

49. I don't take it seriously, at all. Nor do I bother juggling the social upheaval you seem to suggest

it creates by not being fair. The lotto is there, no one has to use buy a ticket..if they win..good for
them. What you read into what I said on how they could spend the money, is just that..your
projections. You imagine people who acquire wealth slowly are necessarily more reliable to
contribute to their society? I for one, have seen no evidence that such a bet would be fruitful.

[JackRiddler]

60. No.

You ask, "You imagine people who acquire wealth slowly are necessarily more reliable to contribute to their society?"

No.

I imagine this kind of accumulation of wealth into the hands of an individual, arbitrarily, is never going to be good. (There are reasons to gather capital and it should be done rationally toward chosen, planned ends.)

Though someone getting $200 million off the lottery (the actual sum that will be paid out, as opposed to the state lie of the jackpot total) is not as inherently evil as the normal ways this kind of wealth is accumulated - through monopolies, crimes, scams, coercions, and plunders. As with Wall Street.

[Archae]

48. I just read here at DU, about a guy who won the lottery yet died broke.

He won $27 million yet he died in hospice from (I think,) hepatitis, broke and alone.

[Jefferson23]

50. How sad, seems he had a history of personal difficulties long before he won the money

and they were left unresolved.

[Earth_First]

13. I'm in...

In fact, I'm in for $10.

Two personal tickets, a family pool, a pool at work and a pool on another forum I post to.

Why.

I'm mathematically illiterate.

[underpants]

14. I bought two tickets yesterday

Didn't match a single number.

I HAVE to do better next time!!!

[lobodons]

16. 75 white balls

No one has won since they went to 75 white balls.

[KewlKat]

20. I play so

that when I win I can buy everyone at DU a star.

[jmowreader]

24. Let's see here...

A lottery ticket costs a buck (two in the case of Powerball) and brings the almost infinitesimal chance you might win enough money to never have to decide whether you'd rather have electricity or water this month, ever again.

A Snickers bar also costs a buck, and brings a similarly infinitesimal chance you'll remember you ate it the next day.

Sometimes ya just gotta say fuck it, y'know? A ticket for every Mega Millions draw this month costs less than two mochas at Starbucks.

[1000words]

38. My brother-in-law's brother won $7 million in CT lottery.

It does happen. Ironically, it pretty much ruined his life, but that's another story. I once read that if you know someone who has won a big payout, your odds of winning become even more astronomical.

I don't play the lottery.

[CTyankee]

72. Hey my odds just went UP! I don't know anybody who has won any kind of lottery money...

[catbyte]

27. I broke down & bought a ticket today. I should've just torched my $2, but oh well, lol

[840high]

29. I bought one.

[catbyte]

36. Hey, SOMEBODY's gotta win, right? I know I have a better chance of being struck by a

meteor during a killer bee attack here in Michigan in December, but it's still fun!

[ripcord]

39. A buck it cheap for a few days of dreaming

[1000words]

37. That's over a half of BILLION dollars

More than the GDP of fifteen (albeit, small) nations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29

[Tom Rinaldo]

54. Simple question

Once the jackpot builds to these wild numbers, does it give out more money to winners than it takes in for ticket sales for the current drawing?

Of course even that assumes someone wins the latest drawing, but even if it takes two more drawings to get a winner, I figure at some point the odds are such that it may not be a "bad investment" to spend $2 on a ticket. If the odds are 50 million to one against getting a winning ticket, but that ticket ends up being worth 500 million, mathematically, is it really a foolish thing to spend $2 on?

My premise is limited to buying one ticket on the assumption that almost everyone's economic situation will not deteriorate significantly by taking that risk. On the other hand if money is tight and someone buys 50 tickets, that's different because it then materially effects them to lose.

[JackRiddler]

63. No it's not.

It is state-sanctioned lie about the actual total that will be paid, vastly inflated so as to create greater hysteria and get more people buying more tickets.

[Packerowner740]

40. Reminds me of a joke

A blond coed, seeing that the lotto jackpot has gotten huge gets down on her knees and prays "dear God, please let me win the lottery tonight, I can really use it". That night the numbers are chosen and there is no winner.

A couple of days later the same blond coed gets on her knees and again prays "dear God, please help me win the lotto tonight, I am behind on my bills and really need the money". Again the numbers are picked and again there is no winner.

On the day of the next drawing the young blond coed goes to church, lights a candle and kneels in the front pew. She begs God to help her win the lottery, "please Lord, I may lose everything if I don't win".

Just then she hears a booming voice "hey blonde, this is God, do me a favor".
"Yes Lord" says the blonde, "anything, what can I do"?
"If you really want to win" says The Lord "Buy a lottery ticket".

[ileus]

56. Sign me up...I skipped the last one because it was too small.

I won't let half billion get away...

[JackRiddler]

61. That number is a shameless lie.

The jackpot to be paid if someone gets all the numbers will not be remotely close to that sum.

Though hardly the only lie told as a matter of systemic state policy in purveying the lottery. Here's an even worse lie: that the money raised goes to education.

[Tom Rinaldo]

70. Well Business Insider said a $1 ticket could be defended as an investment, sort of

The dateline for this was yesterday, just for the record:

Math Says You Should Buy A Mega Millions Ticket Right Now

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/you-should-buy-a-mega-million-ticket-2013-12#ixzz2nqJeaFBf

"...Notice that by far our most likely outcome is that we get none of the numbers right. There is about a 93% chance that we just wind up losing our dollar. Despite this, since the jackpot is so enormously high right now, our average winnings are a nice positive $1.63, indicating that we should consider buying a ticket.

Another notable property of Mega Millions is that the lower prizes do not help us too much. Without that jackpot, the expected value is a very unhappy —$0.82. So, Mega Millions really is all about the jackpot.