1.6 billion dollars

[lyman]

I'll buy a ticket or 2,

if I win, I'll set up a trust to collect it, and then the usual stuff,

land, farmhouse, 1258 car garage/safe/reloading room,

1000yrd range etc etc,



or not,

[Mark in Ottawa]

The first thing that anybody who wins a major lottery should do, is get outta town for a while. That should reduce the calls from people wanting you to share your luck with their charity or their friends in need or their worthy selves, etc. The second thing is to get an unlisted phone number and a phone with a screen that tells you who is calling. Thirdly, you need a good certified financial planner (one who operates on a fee for service basis rather than on commission) and a good stockbroker from a major corporation (I am cynical about financial planners who want control of your money or of stockbrokers who are not part of major corporations that have good governance and oversight). Fourthly, it is OK to indulge yourself a bit at first but after that you should establish a rigid policy that you will spend the earnings but not the capital. That approach might enable you to fend off people who want you to support them financially in some way. You just say "all that I have available is my earnings and that is not enough to share with your no matter how noble or profitable your endeavor might be; and may I wish you a nice day."

Notwithstanding all of the above, in some cases it might be appropriate to share the capital with your children. Before doing that, however, you might want to evaluate how stable their marriage is. No point in giving your kid $500,000 to buy a house only to find that they are about to divorce and half the family home gets split between the spouses, no matter who paid for it.

(For transparency, note that although I do not practice, I hold a designation as a Certified Financial Planner)

[dogtag]

I'll not buy a ticket because if I did and I won I'd probably have a heart attack.

[lyman]

The first thing that anybody who wins a major lottery should do, is get outta town for a while. That should reduce the calls from people wanting you to share your luck with their charity or their friends in need or their worthy selves, etc. The second thing is to get an unlisted phone number and a phone with a screen that tells you who is calling. Thirdly, you need a good certified financial planner (one who operates on a fee for service basis rather than on commission) and a good stockbroker from a major corporation (I am cynical about financial planners who want control of your money or of stockbrokers who are not part of major corporations that have good governance and oversight). Fourthly, it is OK to indulge yourself a bit at first but after that you should establish a rigid policy that you will spend the earnings but not the capital. That approach might enable you to fend off people who want you to support them financially in some way. You just say "all that I have available is my earnings and that is not enough to share with your no matter how noble or profitable your endeavor might be; and may I wish you a nice day."

Notwithstanding all of the above, in some cases it might be appropriate to share the capital with your children. Before doing that, however, you might want to evaluate how stable their marriage is. No point in giving your kid $500,000 to buy a house only to find that they are about to divorce and half the family home gets split between the spouses, no matter who paid for it.

(For transparency, note that although I do not practice, I hold a designation as a Certified Financial Planner)

good advice,

I think in Va you have 6 months to redeem the ticket,
plenty of time to set up a trust, get burner cells etc etc,

and of course test drive a few Aston Martins,,

[Allen]

Not that any of us would ever be concerned but I've always heard the first thing you do is consult a lawyer who handles such windfall and set up a dummy corporation to receive the lottery procedes. Out of the corp you can trans money, set up trust funds and draw $ from it.

What you do not want to do is strut into the lottery commission, sign the back of the ticket and say "givme". In doing so your name will end up in every newspaper in the country and posted on all the billboards. You and your whole family will be put into instant jeopardy. This should be unlawful but it is how they operate. They like the advertisement at your expense.

[Clark Howard]

I normally would not consider a contribution to the lottery scam. BUT, I recall the famous quote, "Excess quantity has a quality all it's own." Regards, Clark

[dryheat]

If you actually have taken the time to map out a post winning sequence for the lottery you probably played with G.I. Joe when you were a kid. Do I sound like I'm dis-respectful of the lottery? Well, I have about as much respect for ticket buyers as I have to buyers of "body art". Check out the line at the store, not the sharpest looking bunch.

[lyman]

Getting serious about the lottery is a form of mental instability. I know a guy that has a large cardboard box full of tickets. He keeps them for some odd reason. It falls under the catagory of, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

I ran a store that sold scratchers,

I had the opening shift a couple days a week where I would play cashier/service clerk for an hour while my clerk ran the books in the office,

so being there at 6am, not a lot of customers, (like maybe 5 from 6am till 7) I would get the disposed scratchers in the bin, and run them thru the lotto machine,

usually picked up 20 bucks or so a month, sometimes in a week,

folks scratch, think they lost, and didn't

put it towards the cash shortages in the office, or cashed them when not needed and bought the folks breakfast or something,