Mega Millions Lottery Jackpot Reaches $1.28 Billion

Yes, I’m the one who is going to win the massive Mega Millions jackpot. It’s true. I felt it best to let you all know now, especially since I’ve already informed my manager I won’t be in on Monday. (It felt so good to finally give him a piece of my mind! I said swear words we can’t even publish!)

It’s actually kind of charitable of me to even spend the time writing this, given I’ve spent most of the last few days searching real estate websites and clicking “sort by most expensive to least expensive.”

As I’m sure you know, the Mega Millions jackpot has grown steadily since Tuesday night’s unsuccessful drawing (the 29th in a row!), as more and more people waste their money (not me) by buying tickets that won’t win (again, not mine).

On Wednesday morning, the jackpot stood at around $1.02 billion. With just hours to go, it’s since climbed to a staggering $1.28 billion.

Now, that’s if you (me) elect to take the payment as an annuity over 30 years. Pretax, that’s more than $42 million every year for the next three decades. Imagine how exhausting it’s going to be (for me) to spend that much money each year and then get to work each Jan. 1 having to do it all over again!

Most other chumps choose to take the cash option up front, which is now about $747.2 million. But as a newly megawealthy person, I’ll now be able to live for a long time so I think I’d prefer to have the guaranteed income, thank you very much. (Is “income” even the right word to describe that much money? “Hamptons house fund”? “Private jet endowment”?)

In fact, since it ballooned, Friday night’s drawing is now the third-largest jackpot in US history. Some of you might feel sorry for me for not taking home the two largest-ever winnings, but I assure you I am a man of modest means and I will simply make do.

According to the Associated Press, the odds of winning are about 1 in 302.5 million. But as Lady Gaga famously said, there can be 302.5 million people in a room and all it takes is one: me.

I will admit I’ve really got a good laugh from seeing other people on social media post their little tweets thinking they’re going to win. It’s so cute. Misplaced, but cute.

Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/mega-millions-jackpot-bye-buzzfeed