The Powerball lottery is up to $1 billion tonight. If you won it, what would you do?
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Keep it a secret.
Exactly. Do as little as required by the laws of where you live and immediately get the fuck away from wherever you are and start the process to emigrate to a different country. Christmas and Thanksgiving will now be done over video chat.
You won’t fly your family in on your private jet?
Nope. They’re the ones most likely to murder me. Just me, my wife, and our cats. Minimal chances of murder. Except from one of the cats but if it comes down to it, I think I can take her.
Too many eggs in one basket
My wife and I were thinking about this last week. We were wondering about personal security. At least where we live, they like to make a spectacle of the big winner with photo op, publish name and how town, etc. We wondered if that would invite trouble for the winner. For instance, would people try to break in expecting you to have valuables? Would you be a target for kidnapping and ransom? What about your family or close friends, would someone kidnap them to get you to pay ransom on? Even if you immediately spent it all, would people still try, not knowing it’s all gone? I’m with you, I’d keep it as secret as I could.
The guy who won “over a billion” (that’s not what he got to keep) has headlines with his full name, what real estate he’s bought, lawsuits brought against him and he’s had to get body guards.
Because california forces a person to claim it and anonymity isn’t allowed.
Like a lot of trouble, the worst doesn’t come from strangers, it comes from people you know. By all accounts, what happens is that anyone who knows you comes out of the woodwork and suddenly wants a favor, or a small loan, or an investment in their brilliant business idea, and of course you’re the asshole if you deny any of them. If you can’t keep it a secret entirely, it’s best to at least lock up the money somewhere so that you can blame the big mean lawyer who is “making” you be responsible and not blow it all on your second cousin’s crypto app.
This user knows.
Sleep.
Not possible in some states, unfortunately :/
Yeah, in my state when you win they have a picture of you holding a check that airs on rotation on every lottery machine for months.
My wife’s best friend won $1M and everyone recognize her at all the bars because of it. She got the last laugh because she blew all that money and now nobody can get any of it out of her.
Keep a million for fun, everything else, buy a very conservative and diversified portfolio, borrow against it and purchase real estate worldwide in places with water access and least affected by climate change. With profits start funding antifa, anarcho-syndicalist, ecosocialist, and similar movements.
How to get assassinated by the CIA in 3 easy steps!
I like the cut of your jib
Yarrr
More power to you comrade.
Sir, here is your pass for “things whose end justify the mean”, have a good day.
Until they eat you.
Pretty sure they would not eat the person funding them. Militant groups tend to like funding and toys for their activities.
If you are buying real estate, you won’t be funding “antifa” or any of the other things you are fantasizing. Profit-bearing RealEstate is directly counter to all of those movments, and once they start threatening you, you’ll immediately pivot to funding the status-quo.
I guess you’re calling me ignorant and a hypocrite without knowing anything about me or my value system.
My recommendation to you would be to read again and instead of assuming ignorance and hypocrisy, assume that I know very well what I’m talking about. And then meditate on it.
I would come back here and give 1 mil to everyone who upvote me and 2 mil for op
I upvoted you seven thousand times. Someone else must have given that many downvotes which is the only explanation for why your score is not 7000.
D’aww, thank you 😅
How would you know who upvoted you?
I would pay 1 mil to lemmy.ml admin for that information.
Btw, did I win? Did we win?
Keep playing to get more rich.
Most professional gamblers quit just before a big victory. I won’t make that mistake.
THIS is the right answer. So many idiots in this thread.
I think you’re right. I’ll put my whole welfare check on powerball tonight.
Have you considered a payday loan so you could buy for next months welfare check as well? Don’t want to miss out for sure.
I’ll tell ya what I’d do, man. Two chicks at the same time, man.
That’s it? If you won the lottery, you’d do two chicks at the same time?
Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a millionaire I could hook that up, too; 'cause chicks dig dudes with money.
Well, not all chicks.
The type of chicks that would double up on a dude like me do.
Good point.
Go away, batin’!
at the same time!?!!??
Not tell anyone and just quietly retire. Spend as much time as possible with my kids as they grow.
Talk to a major law firm about accepting the prize as anonymously as possible. Take the lump sum -payment to the lawyer team and divide it into thirds. One third goes into a trust that I can direct friends and family to with instructions to offer assistance for major life events, weddings, funerals, education and the like. That way I never have to be the bad guy who says yeah, no.
The second third will get invested into low risk bonds so I have a stable income forever
The final third will become what people normally do with lottery winnings, new home, that kind of stuff
-slides loaded briefcase across table-
I would like one (1) healthcare, please.
Sorry bud, if you want brand name paracetamol thats gonna cost you 2 billion.
Among other things, I’d keep going to work. I enjoy my job. What I’ll really enjoy is every time someone tries to pawn off something on me that’s not actually my job I’ll tell them, “not my job”
Being able to go in to work without the same fears that usually accompany those living paycheck to paycheck even if they enjoy the work must be the most freeing thing ever. Knowing you are now untouchable financially so can take a stand if something annoys you enough.
I paid off all of my debts and have a few months saved up. Same feeling I think. It is the most freeing feeling I’ve ever felt. Like a mini retirement.
Yeah I’m freelance and really love my work. It’s rewarding and impactful. Without any doubt these things are true. I’d probably cut back my hours a bit. But I’d just tell my clients that my services are now free.
Got a chuckle imagining the Cheryl Tunt character from Archer; so when anyone at your job tries to pawn off something on you, you yell back: “You’re not my supervisor!”
Cut my hours back at work, maybe take a sabbatical spend much more time with my kids, and go to art school. I’m pretty good at it, but it wasn’t in the trailer park cards.
I would buy Reddit and convert it into a Lemmy instance.
You know everyone would be screaming about preemptively defederating, right?
Well now that I have “fuck you” money there’s a few things on my mind.
First, I’m going to eat at a lot of restaurants. I’m going to enjoy my meals too. Through the whole meal I’m going to be buying iced milks for another random patron. I’m going to make sure the waiter is aware that this good gesture needs to be anonymous and I will make sure that as long as the waiter keeps delivering the iced milks I will keep adding $1000 onto their tip. These iced milks will not stop coming until there is nowhere left for the patron to reasonably sit. This waiter will not have to work for a long time afterwards.
Second, I’m going to buy a shit ton of gold bricks. Like the big one’s you envision are in Fort Knox, also known as “Good Delivery” bars. I’m also going to hire an elite team of private security forces whose sole job will be to transport that gold in plain sight everywhere that I happen to go. If by chance my gold is not allowed with me into an establishment, then I will just attempt to buy the place right there on the spot. If that doesn’t work, then my team will take the gold and wait with it on public property.
Pretty sure that $1b is long gone by now, but finally I’m going to be throwing parades—a lot of parades. I will have permits for parades on the streets in front of the houses of all my enemies. These will take place at the most inconvenient possible times that my team of schedulers, planners, and event organizers will be able to find. I will have the dumbest fucking floats in these parades and the shittiest marching bands. I will not stop until I’m sufficient conviced I have broken the spirit of my enemies.
This is why they won’t give me money.
Iced milk. That’s amazing. I’m stealing this.
sanest lemmy user
I’d keep it a secret except from the closest people to me. I’d be incredibly boring about what I’d do with it.
First I would pay off my mortgage and invest a chunk in “safe” investments - so shares in utility companies, funeral business - boring reliable investments - and property and land, across borders. All to try and guarentee I would stay financially secure long term for the rest of my life, and weather financial storms.
I’d help my immediate family financially (siblings and parents, and closest friends) but would not go over board - I’d make their lives better but not ruin them, and would aim to keep most of the money ready to keep helping for years to come rather than splurge out. And I wouldn’t tell them how much I had so as not to ruin relationships.
For what I do for me I would think very hard. I’d probably not quit work immediately and I’d try not to ruin my life.
I’d probably look to travel but in bursts - either nice holidays and keep working (I like my job) or quit work and live 3 months at a time in places I’ve always wanted to be for a bit before settling down again.
Anything I do or buy I would do as someone “middle class”. So I’d travel economy plus, I’d stay in decent hotal but not the most flashy, I’d buy a decent home but not a mansion (I don’t need a 10 bed home, I’d just get a nicer version of what I have now - 3 beds but maybe detached and in a nicer area).
Basically I’d upgrade my life a little but I wouldn’t go wild. I don’t see the value in the conspicuously wealthy lifestyle - I’d see money as buying freedom but I wouldn’t want to be wasteful, and I wouldn’t want to be a target for criminals or leeches.
And the rest i’d start puting to good causes. That would probably be conservation charities, green charities, social projects I believe in. Id want to use it to create some kind of legacy even if anonymous - for me that would be something that meaningfully improved the world in some small but realistic way.
Basically I’d be very boring, stay anonymous and try and make relatively small but meaningful changes to my life and those I love.
You think you would get to live in the same place with no one knowing you won the $1B lottery? Interesting.
Me, I would go to a top law firm and see a senior partner about getting out of being publicized. Have them set up sale of property and disconnect my phone lines and internet accounts after creating new unknown ones. I would have the lawyers present the ticket for me through various layers of holding companies and trusts, but I would be a ghost for awhile. The legal team would make sure all family members got some money with a nice non disclosure agreement. Immediate family would have my contact information with a request to never disclose. All money Would be dispersed between several low fee brokerages where I would invest in a combination of treasury backed securities, short term CDs, total stock market ETFs, and cash would be dispersed between several high interest savings accounts. I would be unreachable for 6 months while News died down.
I would honestly just disappear.
If I had enough money that I can just go “fuck you”, that’s what I’d do. I’d obviously help my family financially, but probably not as a lump sum except to help them buy property to make houses on. But beyond that, I would basically be away and uncontactable. No one would know where I am and what I’m up to except maybe a couple times a year.
The bigger question is actually what type of charity I’d end up doing. I have some distrust for charities, so I’d want to take a more direct approach, so in all likelihood, I’d be helping a number of small creators I believed in to see if they could get a chance at establishing themselves better.
If I won the lottery, I would start by ending the homeless problem in my state. All it would take would be one stroke of the pen and many people’s lives would be improved.
and then you start getting sued cause someone hurt themselves in one of the homes you put them in, or it burned down, or any of a thousand other reasons, because greedy shitheads exist and are plentiful and will gladly turn your sweet treat into acid in your mouth in a heart beat if they think they can squeeze more blood out of you.
I would definitely have to lawyer up and get as much of my ass covered as possible. Huzzah!
That’s why you save some in the contingency account, I would recommend 20%
Noble, but I’ve got some very bad news about how much it would take to end homelessness in even the smallest state in the country, as even if the 500 mil you’d be left with after taxes could do it, which it couldn’t, more homeless people would move to that state immediately
Utah managed to do it and they’re doing just fine.
ok. you can afford to fund Utah’s homeless problem for 1.5 years, with 500 million, which is what you’d be left with after winning the 1 Billion dollar lottery
You can always start a foundation to keep the money flowing in. People would donate
Probably more cost effective to pay off local and state politicians to get tax money diverted to it.
True. That’s lobbying I can get behind
Foundations do not exist to solve problems. They exist so their founders can profit either socially and financially off of them.
