Suppose a doctor tells you you have a particularly deadly disease. Without antibiotics, your chances of survival are only one in 200 million. With antibiotics, your survival odds jump a hundred-fold to one in 2 million. You’d feel pretty bad, right?
But I digress, won’t hijack further. But I agree with Ludovic that earning a smaller payout might be worth it; plus it can build office camaraderie.
This seems very relevant. If he does just fold up shop, Jerry has lost his job through no fault of his own, and the rest of the office has contributed to his misfortune, albeit not willfully.
I’d encurage everyone to chip in to give Jerry the equivalent of a few years’ salary. Think of it as severance pay. If the office does fold, it will keep him on his feet while he looks for a new job, even if that takes a while; if the owner restaffs, Jerry is now the one guy who’ll have to train all the newcomers and deserves a nice bonus for that. (If this is happening in the US, I think $10K is the limit for handing people money without ‘gift tax’ kicking in - maybe $10K from each of his 11 coworkers?)
The bolded is a curious way to describe the situation. To avoid being the last one left is one of my main motivations for contributing regularly to our ongoing lottery pool. One is welcome not to participate but those who do haven’t contributed to anyone’s misfortune. That was Jerry’s decision and understanding of the possible consequences.
In this instance, if the shop closes up then the owner certainly has the wherewithal to extend Jerry an ample severance package.
Why did you pick Jerry to be a nice guy to, as opposed to any of the other millions of people who are in greater need and more deserving?
I don’t see where Velocity is committing the 50/50 fallacy, or necessarily doing bad math. If you pool resources, your chances of winning are greater, but the expected value is exactly the same, so mathematically there is no difference.
I hyperbolically compared it with the 50/50 fallacy, I didn’t say he committed it. He dismissed the increase in chances of winning as irrelevant, period, not as irrelevant given that there is no change in expected value.
And he has already accepted as true Ludovic’s explanation of how the utility of a big lottery win doesn’t decrease linearly with the size of the payout. Which I agree with, but left out to avoid entering into a discussion about the usefulness of “expected value”-calculations for individual lottery decisions.
Hole in One.
I am Jerry in this scenario. I will refuse politely (and maybe less politely if you ask me each time you decide to play) but I’m not gonna contribute to the corporate gambling game.
I voted “He made his choice. We give him nothing.” – I certainly would not expect y’all to share your winnings if you strike it rich.
Odd are, you will put more money in the state’s coffers than you’ll get back from it, which is why they have lotteries.
When we did it, which was just twice really, it was a solidarity-based “stick it to the man” thing. My little group of seven were pissed off at management and wanted to share a fantasy of retiring together and letting them reap the whirlwind of their foolish policies :p.
If I was in racer72’s shoes I wouldn’t share a dime and that includes family and friends outside of maybe picking up the check for dinner. But the OP was a bit different.
Ten people at $1billion = $100 million each. But let’s assume everyone votes for taking cash value instead of an annuity( and I believe collectively you can only choose one or the other ). That will cut it very, very roughly by half from what I’ve read. So let’s say now everyone is getting $50 million. IN CA where I live you pay no state taxes on lottery winnings, but you still have to pay the Feds. Top rate is 37% and we’ll just assume everything is taxed at that rate( most of it will be ). So after taxes everyone is really getting $31.5 million.
Now lifetime gift tax exemption in 2019 is $11.4 million. Would I personally give away that much all at once? Sure. $20 million, more or less, is more than enough to make me stupendously comfortable for the rest of my life. In this little 11 person office I’m not going to leave pleasant family man Jerry high and dry. I’d shoot $10 million collectively to my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews and a little bit to a very few friends. Another wee bit to charity. Plus the relatives can be sure they get to inherit( with taxes to be paid )on whatever I leave behind, which will probably be a lot.
But I’d likely give Jerry $1 million, if everyone else in the pool said no. I perhaps would scale that back if everyone was chipping in. I might throw $100k or two to the business owner if I liked and respected him, nothing if he’s a prick.
If I’m winning less that that, I’m giving less and there is a going to be a breakpoint where I’d give nothing at all. But tens of millions after taxes? I can literally afford to be generous and I don’t hold with “if you snooze, you lose” notions. I’m not looking to compete with anyone in the game of life ;).
The benefit of buying together is that I get X times the chance of winning with the only stipulation that I have to split the win with X number of people. Since the utility of money decreases as wealth increases, I come out ahead as long as the amount I’d win is high enough.
Look at the OP’s numbers. Do I really care if I win $90 million or $1 billion? Not really. So I’m getting 11 times the chance of winning for no appreciable reduction in winnings. Granted, that’s not a lot better. But it explains why I’d rather buy a ticket in a pool than buy one for myself. And this is true however many tickets I would buy.
That said, that low chance means I understand why Jerry didn’t buy in. He obviously doesn’t get a full share, but we all have money to throw around, and I’m not going to fault Jerry for playing the better odds.
I’m just not sure if I’d go for thousands or millions. I would have to square away everything I would spend money on first. And of course I would suggest the others join in. The lower utility of higher amounts of money kicks in again, so it’s more like just giving him a nice present for being a friendly guy to work with.
I know I’d feel bad if I was Jerry, so I would want to make Jerry feel better, same as I would wish others would have done so if I were Jerry. That’s the rule of reciprocity: Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.
Because I know Jerry. We used to work together.
I agree about the non-linearity of money, but I estimate it the other way: $2 makes no difference to me, $200K makes a bit of difference, $200M completely changes my life. $200M is /not/ the equivalent of 100,000,000 candy bars.
I’d give Jerry some money and encourage everyone else to as well. Jerry is not just left out of the lottery payout, he’s had his livelihood taken away also. Everybody can contribute what they like, he doesn’t need to know how much each person gave.
Were these couple people relatives, close friends, acquaintances, or passing strangers who’d heard about your windfall? Any of those who made that suggestion to me would be insta-deleted from any largesse list I might be drawing up, especially for a sum that didn’t even make it to six figures.
A close friend of mine has a 3% share in an enterprise that could be worth billions.* He showed me his bucket list and I made a couple suggestions. Other than that I have never made any suggestions about where the money should go, especially involving me. It was supposed to all happen last December but nuthin’ did. Finally last month I said, “If you don’t mind telling me, wha’ happened?”
Turned out it was greed. Some guy who had a bigger share than my friend’s was demanding a bigger cut and now lawyers were all tugging at it. I said that it was better than one of the scenarios I’d thought of: That it had failed its third trial, something that happens all too often.
Now, if he were to offer me some of his pile, I’d take it in a heartbeat, you bet, but I would never ever make that suggestion. I value our friendship more than any sum of money.
*It involves amelioration (not a cure) for diabetic neuropathy. Some oncologists have expressed an interest in it which would boost the money by about ten times.
So Jerry is even luckier than you. He gets something for nothing just for being in the right place at the right time. He didn’t take any risk, in fact pooh-poohed the risk you were taking. OK.
I was going to choose ‘give him nothing’, but thought I’d kick him a few thousand because, hey, I may be an asshole, but I’m not 100% a dick.
At least Jerry is now the senior guy to all the new employees.
By him not participating the chance of winning for the group is less. He did not do his share for the group and overall hurt the group’s chances of winning. That said a goodwill gift of a perhaps a years salary I might consider.
Jerry picked me up a Starbucks coffee once a few years back Pretty sure splitting the cost of my ticket with him was an installment on paying him back. He can have half of mine, it’s already more than I need.
Jerry chose to not participate in the lottery, so he does not deserve a share of the winnings.
On the other hand, having all his co-workers jump ship and effectively get Jerry fired in the process is a DICK move.
Each of you should compensate his for his lost job. A year or so should do.
That’d be me. But unlike Jerry, I’d participate “to be social”.
Sounds like Jerry doesn’t care about being social. Not a problem, I’d respect his autonomy and personal space. But then he doesn’t get a cut of the winnings.
I like the idea of anyone who wants to contributing a couple hundred to a “Jerry’s Vacation Fund, Because He’ll Be Overworked Once We’re All Gone”.
But I’ve been thinking about what I’d do if it were ME as the Jerry here. I would’ve known the rules and would absolutely NOT expect ANYthing… but I’d still take a donation 
Jerry’s been getting on my nerves for a while now. He’s always microwaving that stinky broccoli casserole in the break room. His little Civil War factoids are not nearly as interesting as he thinks they are. And just last week he didn’t hold the elevator for me. I know he heard me yell “Hey, Jer, hold it, willya?!” because he made a half-assed move toward the button. But I know he was never planning to push it.
Jerry sucks. He gets nothing.