Recently the “BIG GAME” as it’s known here in Georgia, climbed to an over 60 million jackpot, and some friends asked me to go into a pool with them where we would each share an equal amount if one set of numbers won. Has there ever been an instance where someone was hurt or killed because he or she felt cheated in some way? (we bought 100 tickets and made about 26.00)
Thanks
Q
I’ve never heard of anyone being killed or beaten senseless, but there have been a few lawsuits. And, having been in a lawsuit, I can say that I would RATHER have been beaten senseless.
If you’re going to join a pool, make sure that everyone in the pool is legally of age to play the lottery. One woman borrowed money off of an underage girl to buy a ticket and won. The underage girl sued to get half of the lottery winnings, and the courts decided that neither party would get the winnings because the girl wasn’t old enough to play.
Also, there should be a clear outline of how the winnings will be split, and records of who put in what. It’s not unheard of for a member of the winning party to try to collect their share, only for the other people to say “What? You didn’t put any money in.” Greed does funny things to people. It may seem stupid, but get a receipt.
Are the pools dangerous? Depends on how deep they are 
Sorry.
But seriously, I would rather buy lotto tickets on my own (if at all). Might as well try to win big, if the odds are stacked against you anyway.
It seems to me that it would be prudent to only go in with people you know you can trust. If you do so, there shouldn’t be any significant danger.
All disputes with coworkers are dangerous, but most people are killed by family.
I lived in Florida when the lottery started there and within a year, all sorts of pools popped up. The small ones were safe because everyone knew each other, but the big ones started having problems.
There was one out of state one which caused major problems, not to its members, but how it did business as seen by Floridians. A group of fairly well off folks started a pool, run by a small group of paid professionals. These guys ran probabilities for number groupings on a computer, determined just how many tickets they needed to buy consisting of random numbers (the Quick Pick), and from which areas in order to have a roughly 51% chance of winning. (The Florida Lottery has something like an average of a million to one chance normally of anyone winning.)
They waited until the lotto hit something like a 24 million prize, then acted. They hit stores selling the tickets in several areas, buying them up by something like 1,000 at a time. This tied up the lotto machines so no one else in these key areas could purchase any tickets. They sent out several groups a purchased something like a million tickets, on the last lotto day, within the last hours before the drawing.
They were one of two winners, collecting 12 million, 11 million after costs. Around 8 million after taxes. Each participant got a couple of hundred thousand.
A whole bunch of people were really ticked off at them because by their simultaneous ‘attack,’ they actually clogged the lottery system, tilting the percentages in their favor by preventing others from getting in at those critical times. There were rumors that Florida was going to put laws in place preventing major buys of tickets, but I don’t know what happened.
The last I read was that the group was going after other lotteries in other states and there was a fuss because the backers had the money to finance such an ‘attack’ which put the regular guy on the street at a huge disadvantage.
Now, before I left Florida, some guy bought his newly divorced wife a ticket and when she hit something like 8 million, he promptly took her to court, claiming that since he had bought the ticket, the money was his. She was willing to give him half, but he wanted it all. (I think you can see why they were divorced.) After the usual ages of lawyer instigated insanity, nastiness and distortion, she won because even though he bought the ticket, it was given away to her as a gift, whereupon it became her property.
He got nothing but a big lawyers bill. There was a rumor that she was going to take him back to court and sue him for suing her. I don’t know how that ever came out, but she then had the bucks to do it.