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Given the choice between a publicized $1.2M lottery win and a secret $1M lottery win, I wouldn't hesitate to chose the $1M prize.
by swimfar 6y ago
Given the choice between a publicized $1.2M lottery win and a secret $1M lottery win, I wouldn't hesitate to chose the $1M prize.
- OJFord 6y agoAnd yet in actual lotteries, (a certain sort of) people routinely waive anonymity for the benefit only (I assume) of the lottery organisation/'s marketing department.
- ta17711771 6y agoBuuuut...people who play the lottery generally aren't even good at probability, you can't expect them to be making smart social decisions.
- smabie 6y agoIt's pretty common to encounter a lottery that has a positive expected value.
- LudwigNagasena 6y agoEven if a lottery has a negative monetary EV it may have a positive utility EV.
- ghaff 6y agoIt's basically a transparency thing. Otherwise (well, probably in any case), you'll have people saying the lottery was rigged and the money went to relatives of the the officials running the lottery or something along those lines. [Oops: That was meant to be a reply to why state lottery recipients sometimes have to be public.]
- dylan604 6y agoYou're confusing the lottery with the McDonald's Monopoly game
- driverdan 6y agoNo, it isn't. You have to include the probability of sharing the prize with someone else which always reduces the expected payout to negative.
- nathantotten 6y agoMany states require you to reveal your identity to claim the lottery prize.
- joejerryronnie 6y agoI’ve been told to setup a blind trust and accept your winnings through this trust
- abeppu 6y agoAre you using the term "blind trust" in a non-standard way? My understanding is that it refers to arrangements where the beneficiary doesn't get to know about (or choose) assets held, not where the beneficiary gets to be anonymous.
- joejerryronnie 6y agoIt’s being used in both contexts these days
- SkyPuncher 6y agoDoesn't work in all states. This is the golden post I always look back to on this subject: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vzgl/you_just_won_a_656_million_dollar_lottery_what_do/chba5nw/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/24vzgl/you_just_...
- chrissnell 6y agoThat Reddit post is funny to read from a 2020 perspective. Things aren't so stable now. If I won a $600MM prize, a good chunk of the $30MM spending money would go to buying a large property in rural southern Utah with good water rights, quality arable land that can grow fruits/vegetables/hay, an airstrip, and a defensible position. I would stock it with lots of food, guns, ammunition, and diesel fuel. Having that retreat is as important to me as having the $30MM in treasury notes.
- cortesoft 6y agoSure, if you want to go to jail for tax evasion.
- sokoloff 6y agoThere are privacy reasons that one might drive one to prefer a smaller, unknown prize.
- koheripbal 6y agoFinding buried treasure is probably one of the best ways to acquire wealth with very low risk of being detected by the IRS for tax evasion.
- cortesoft 6y agoWhy would it be better than any other random way of getting untracked cash? It would be the same difficulty as if you got a bunch of drug money... you suddenly have a lot more money with no way to explain how you got it.
- koheripbal 6y agoTreasure retains its value over time - so there's no pressure to launder it - which is fundamentally different from holding a whole ton of cash. Cash from drug sales is also small bills, and therefore voluminous.