500,000,000

That's a big number. The estimated jackpot for the Mega Millions lottery drawing this coming weekend is now at 1/2billion dollars. I'm not attaching a picture to this post or making it look fancy or pretty because I think the lottery is a sad thing.

• Only the government can run a lottery, for some reason they lawmakers have decided that a lottery drawing is too dangerous for the general public to manage.
• People's lives will be ruined by winning all or part of that huge payout. Somebody poor enough (relatively speaking) for the lottery to look like an attractive option has no business trying to manage that kind of money.
• The winner(s) will never see anywhere close to the total jackpot amount. After all of the partial winners who got all but one or two numbers right, about half will actually be paid, then about half of the amount actually paid will be taxed at more than 50%.
• I would still like to buy a ticket. The prospect of getting something for practically nothing is always inviting.
• I think it would be really cool to give large amounts of money to people who could really use it; people swimming in medical debts and other such problems. I like to think I would actually be a good enough person to really do that with half of my winnings.