# I won the Powerball!!!!! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 19, 2013, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729 "2013-05-19T06:39:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/1 "2013-05-19T06:39:20Z")
… and nothing else. Four bucks, baby! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/2 "2013-05-19T07:08:41Z")
Woohoo! _Everybody_–party at **Leaper** ’s place! Open bar, right? ---
**Author:** ![R3d\_Anonymous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/aeb1de/32.png) [@R3d\_Anonymous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R3d_Anonymous)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/3 "2013-05-19T16:25:33Z")
Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/4 "2013-05-19T16:28:49Z")
The winning ticket was sold in Florida. My inlaws live in Florida. Obviously, I’m married to an heir to the powerball fortune!!! 😃 We had 10 tickets and nary a winner among them. ---
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/5 "2013-05-19T16:58:12Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > … and nothing else. > > Four bucks, baby! 🆒 Meh - we’ve already cashed ours in. That four bucks got me a real cheap bottle of wine. I can’t believe I blew it all already. When WILL I learn a sense of how to manage my riches?? ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/6 "2013-05-19T18:03:27Z")
My great plan was to borrow $176 million (plus a few extra bucks) to play every single combination and I would be a guaranteed winner! Sadly, my bank would not float me the loan…I guess my credit is a tad low - and I wasn’t able to do this fool-proof plan! …wait…someone else won? So, uh, I would have had to split the win? Hmm…that would cut into my profit somewhat… On our ONE ticket, we got ZERO numbers. Then again - we play one single set of numbers but buy in advance for the next 10 drawings…and seriously, we would be quite happy with “only” $40 million ($25.1 million cash) on the Wednesday game…I never understood people who only play when the jackpot gets up to some ridiculous amount. People were standing in line, _outside in the desert_, here on the Nevada/California border for NINE HOURS to buy tickets yesterday!!! Idiots!!! ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/7 "2013-05-19T23:34:38Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > … and nothing else. > > Four bucks, baby! 🆒 [Baby?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lbqAcdooVs&t=54s&end=58) ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2013, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/8 "2013-05-19T23:36:24Z")
Winner in Zephyrhills. At one point, I had four generations of my family living there and have visited there often since the late 1950s. It is snowbird country and a fairly low income area. Very little industry and lots of ‘mobile’ homes. By now the snowbirds have all gone back north, so the odds are the winner will be a permanent resident - probably retired on a limited budget. I hope they get good legal help. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/9 "2013-05-20T03:13:07Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > The winning ticket was sold in Florida. My inlaws live in Florida. Obviously, I’m married to an heir to the powerball fortune!!! 😃 > > We had 10 tickets and nary a winner among them. I live in Florida. I must be both your inlaws, and the Powerball winner! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/10 "2013-05-20T04:39:30Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > My great plan was to borrow $176 million (plus a few extra bucks) to play every single combination and I would be a guaranteed winner! Nitpick: while there’s about 176 million combinations of numbers (59 C 5 \* 35), each ticket costs $2. So you’d need to borrow $350,447,020 to play each combination! Or maybe you meant you already had 176 mil in the bank, but needed to borrow the other half. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/11 "2013-05-20T11:12:44Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > I live in Florida. > > I must be both your inlaws, and the Powerball winner! > 🙂 I find it hard to dispute your logic… 😃 But, alas, it wasn’t my inlaws - they live in Ocala. Oh well… ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/12 "2013-05-20T12:38:58Z")
I bought one ticket in the morning. Then, later that day a close relative wanted me to buy THEM a ticket. And I was like “seriously if I win 600 fracking million dollars you’ll be able to pay your cable bill easily”. But no, they needed their own ticket. So, later that day I stopped off at the Quicky Mart and bought THEM one. Interesting thing about it was…two tickets bought at two separate locations about 9 hours apart…and three of the random numbers were the same on both tickets. And WTF would I do with 600 million? Buy a whole county in Georgia or Alabama? ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/13 "2013-05-20T13:00:56Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > And WTF would I do with 600 million? You host a DopeFest to end all DopeFests!! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/14 "2013-05-22T00:43:02Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > I find it hard to dispute your logic… > 😃 > But, alas, it wasn’t my inlaws - they live in Ocala. Oh well… So maybe I’m not your inlaws. But I could still be the winner, right? right? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/15 "2015-02-12T05:24:47Z")
I figured I’d bump this thread for… reasons. 🙂 (Or is that :P? Not sure…) ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/16 "2015-02-12T07:55:56Z")
So, burning questions… Have you spent it all yet? Has it ruined your life? ---
**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/17 "2015-02-12T19:06:38Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > On our ONE ticket, we got ZERO numbers. > Then again - we play one single set of numbers but buy in advance for the next 10 drawings…and seriously, we would be quite happy with “only” $40 million ($25.1 million cash) on the Wednesday game…I never understood people who only play when the jackpot gets up to some ridiculous amount. People were standing in line, _outside in the desert_, here on the Nevada/California border for NINE HOURS to buy tickets yesterday!!! Idiots!!! I always wondered that too, but it makes more sense for office pools. Ten people pay $10 each and we get 50 numbers. That increases my chances of winning by 10 times and I will still left with a lot of money. If it is “only” $40 million, by the time you split it with 2 other winning tickets (13.3M), take the lump sum reduction(8M), then split it 10 ways (800K), and then remove a little less than half in taxes, you are left with like $450K. Not something to sneeze at, but that won’t make me rich. That will buy an average house in the DC suburbs. I am in my 30s and will still have to drag myself out of bed and go to work everyday. ETA: Nine hours is stupid though. That is hard to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/18 "2015-02-12T19:19:30Z")
> [@Missy2U](#): > > Meh - we’ve already cashed ours in. That four bucks got me a real cheap bottle of wine. Worry the bottle Mamma, it’s grapefruit wine Kick off your high heel sneakers, it’s party time…! The girls don’t seem to care what’s on As long as it plays till dawn Nothin’ but blues and Elvis And somebody else’s favorite song… ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/19 "2015-02-12T22:05:52Z")
I never buy lottery tickets, but my parents do, and they won $100 this time around. 🆒 They also put scratch-off tickets in our Christmas stocking, and about 10% will have a $1 or $2 prize. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2015, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729/20 "2015-02-12T23:04:27Z")
I got the powerball AND another number, and only got $4. WTF? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-won-the-powerball/658729.md?page=2)