this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024

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Someone Spent $25 Million on Lottery Tickets to Guarantee a Win. And It Worked. (www.vice.com)

submitted 3 months ago by oleorun@real.lemmy.fan to c/weirdnews@real.lemmy.fan

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[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 84 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

They won $96ish million, took the lump payout of $57 million.

[–] nnullzz@lemmy.world 31 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That’s a really affordable military.

[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

lol I thought I edited it before anyone saw that.

[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

Mistakes are forever.

[–] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Wonder what they're gonna do with their $23 million.

[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 months ago

Hookers and blow

[+] Mr_Blott@feddit.uk -15 points 3 months ago (3 children)

How the fuck can you win 96 million on a lottery and only receive 57 mil?

Is that a Freedom©®™ thing the rest of us wouldn't understand? 😂

[–] Mac@mander.xyz 35 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Taxes.
...Which the rest of the world understands well. So why don't you?

[–] groet 42 points 3 months ago (2 children)

In germany the lottery is state owned and the tax is applied before money is added to the jackpot. So if the jackpot is 50mil you get 50mil

[–] SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

American here. That money gets taxed when you buy your number, and when you collect any winnings lol

[–] EvacuateSoul@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No sales tax on the ticket in Texas at least

[–] SynopsisTantilize@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

Well that's good lol.

[–] Mr_Blott@feddit.uk 7 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Yeah getting taxed on winnings is fucking insane, and they just say "it is what it is"

Is there any way they don't get fucked in the arse every time they get money 😂

[–] ashenblood@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 months ago

Your massive inferiority complex regarding America is showing. It's quite clear that you just want to say Murica bad, Muricans dumb, and you can't resist shoehorning that sentiment into completely unrelated discussions.

You should find a healthier way of dealing with that emotion. It's currently making you look like a jackass.

[–] baldingpudenda@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Find a big(trillions) finance firm to move your money into tax differed assets. They'll move the money around so it doesn't get taxed and provide ways to access however much money you need right now. Probably loans against whatever assets you bought.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

Those poor lottery winners…

[–] WHYAREWEALLCAPS@fedia.io 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Nope, that's not what reduced it. It was the lump pay out. You only get the full amount if you take the 21 year payout.

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You still pay taxes on that as well. It's just the taxes are also spread out over the full time payout.

If you take the cash option you'll get about 50% of the total and then have to pay taxes on that, which federally will be something like 35% of what's left, for a total of ~67.5% off the top.

A good rule of thumb if you're considering how much you would walk away with in America is to assume that before state taxes you would get about a third of whatever number is listed.

For instance right now it's like 550 million, you would walk home with about 190 million after taxes before state taxes.

Your state will probably take another 15% of the total if your state charges state taxes, so if you live in a state tax state you would walk home with about 137.5 million, or a touch over 25% of the original total.

Of course, your mileage may vary and you may have access to tax benefits that I am not aware of.

If you end up winning a large lottery in America I highly recommend that you speak to a qualified financial planner and tax professional and not just trust some asshole on the internet.

[–] cuerdo@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Excuse me sir, are you a qualified professional or some asshole on the internet, I have trouble discerning.

[–] bizarroland@fedia.io 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Asshole, unfortunately.

[–] Kraven_the_Hunter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 months ago

I .. may have need of your services...

[–] Mr_Blott@feddit.uk -5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't understand being taxed on winnings, to be honest

But yous get taxed on working abroad 😂😂

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

But yous get taxed on working abroad 😂😂

not american, but i believe this only applies if you pay less income tax in the country you’re working in than what the US would tax, and given the US income tax is relatively low compared to the rest of the world it rarely actually kicks in

and, it actually kinda makes sense IMO - the US is one of the most global countries in the world: as a US citizen you benefit (???) from the USes extensive international presence (eg if you’re held for ransom in a developing country, or in danger the US state department or military could intervene and probably do the most out of any country) even if you’re not in the country… and all that costs money, so it kinda makes some amount of sense

[–] psud@aussie.zone 21 points 3 months ago

You have a choice: get 57M or get an annuity that costs 57M and pays out 96M over two decades

If you took the 57 million and invested it in an index fund you would probably do better than 96M over the same timespan, though you would probably be taxed more and have to be responsible enough to not spend the money instead

[–] WHYAREWEALLCAPS@fedia.io 6 points 3 months ago

The lottery has 2 possible payout methods. One is over time, something like 21 years, IIRC, that will net you the 96 million. There is also the lump payout option that will net you smaller amount overall but more all at once.

[–] BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world 52 points 3 months ago

Great, even the lottery is P2W

[–] adarza@lemmy.ca 27 points 3 months ago

stefan mandel won a bunch of jackpots in australia and the us during the 1970s and 80s doing the same thing, buying all the numbers.

[–] astrsk@fedia.io 24 points 3 months ago

My coworkers and I had a fun lunch calculating minimum purchase amounts to guarantee or significantly increase winning chances for some smaller local lotteries. There’s a surprising amount of chances to do this especially if you pool your money and don’t have to wait for receipts to be printed. There was one local lottery for ~11m and would only require ~600k to be most likely to win based on the average ticket sales of that specific one.

[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 9 points 3 months ago

Everyone realizes the risk is that if someone else wins you get half the pot and if three people do you get 1/3rd and so forth. Large lotteries tend to have large sales and are more likely to have split winnings.

[–] moistclump@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Didn’t Voltaire do this?