where are you guys getting your number from? You get a lot more than 175-200 million if you win the jackpot
For instance I live in wisconsin, if I won and took the cash payout of 548m it would get taxed as income by both federal and state. federal got lowered to 37% and my state's tax would be 7.65% for a total of 44.65% that includes the 25% tax. The government automatically collects that 25% when you win, but it is counted towards the 37% that you owe, not in addition to it. So my personal payout would be 358 million. a far cry from 970m sure, but if I take 8 million for personal expenditures and play money and invest the rest expecting modest returns averaging 5% after 30 years (the time it takes to pay out on the larger amount) you could have 1.5 billion. even if you decide to take out some once in a while you can still get to a billion easy enough once you have that kind of cash to start.
The chances of winning both the mega millions and the powerball are insanely small (1 in some quintillion or something crazy). We are using just the number if you win the 600 mill mega millions portion (which is basically the best possible option) and even then we are saying ONLY you win, which is statistically extremely unlikely.
The payout is about half (a bit more then half but whatever)..or at least that is what it said on a website that talked about it, perhaps it has changed a bit (think someone said the payout was actually more now), then your taxes (yeah you can get it down to only 45% or so), means that an original 600mill ends up being around or under 200 mill.
And again with a number this high it's VERY likely there will be more then one winner. Meanwhile the point was that even if it was only you, you could still never buy every possible number and come out anywhere near ahead (you would be way behind) and the more people that win, the worse off you would be.
Basically it's just throwing money away for million and millions of people with the very very very small chance that you will be the one to get a portion of that money back. Everyone would be way better off just putting all the money into a pot and having a random SS# drawn that gets the money (if they put money in the pot only). That would work out way better AND all the money would go to a person. In addition, you could have it be set up as a gift (Everyone is gifting the winner) which would help with taxes as well.
people have spent more money on loot boxes or xp booster or loan money to a friend. it's $2 for a chance of not worrying ever again. don't get me wrong if you spend $50+ on every lottery day it's wasting your money. But then again people spend $1000 on pokemon go a month. ---